


! ! 



PS 3152 







1894 









fSmuA 

?.\A. m,i 1 111 A .111! .1 1 1 1 



ft ,H 



,, Wfe^il*^.'if'ii!),,V 'I'm 



'^. 






I * 









'fcr« 



iiV'"\J'iin'' - 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




QODDETQQfltiS 



• 



lili i!: ill 1^ 



lliillli 











^6^ 








^0 

.1^ 



,4 o^ * 





^ 













.-^^^ 














I 








ff } n 



Ay 6* 














CjC^^~- ,^cO^C^ 



AS WE GO 



BY 



/ 



CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER 



ILLUSTRATED 




NEW YORK 

HARPER AND BROTHERS 

MDCCCXCIV 




I'cJ 3 i ^ "^^ 



J7 



Copyright, 1893, by Harper & Bi 



All rights reserved. 



CONTENTS 



PAGS 

OUR PRESIDENT 3 

THE NEWSPAPER-MADE MAN lo 

INTERESTING GIRLS i6 

GIVE THE MEN A CHANCE " . 22 

THE ADVENT OF CANDOR 28 

THE AMERICAN MAN 36 

THE ELECTRIC WAY 41 

CAN A HUSBAND OPEN HIS WIFE'S LETTERS? . 49 

A LEISURE CLASS 54 

WEALTH AND CHARACTER 62 

BORN WITH AN "EGO" 67 

JUVENTUS MUNDI 73 

A BEAUTIFUL OLD AGE 79 

THE ATTRACTION OF THE REPULSIVE .... 85 

GIVING AS A LUXURY 92 

CLIMATE AND HAPPINESS 99 

THE NEW FEMININE RESERVE 109 

REPOSE IN ACTIVITY . 117 

WOMEN— IDEAL AND REAL 126 

THE ART OF IDLENESS 132 

IS THERE ANY CONVERSATION? 140 

THE TALL GIRL 146 

THE DEADLY DIARY 154 

THE WHISTLING GIRL 160 

BORN OLD AND RICH 168 

THE "OLD SOLDIER" 177 

THE ISLAND OF BIMINI , 184 

JUNE 193 



BY THE WAY 





OUR 



PRESIDENT 



E are so much accustomed to kings and 
queens and other privileged persons of 
that sort in this world that it is only on 
reflection that we wonder how they be- 
came so. The mystery is not their con- 
tinuance, but how did they get a start ? 
We take little help from studying the 
bees — originally no one could have been 
born a queen. There must have been 
not only a selection, but an election, not 
by ballot, but by consent some way ex- 
pressed, and the privileged persons got 
their positions because they were the 
strongest, or the wisest, or the most cun- 
ning. But the descendants of these privi- 
leged persons hold the same positions 
when they are neither strong, nor wise. 



nor very cunning. This also is a mystery. 
The persistence of privilege is an un- 
explained thing in human affairs, and the 
consent of mankind to be led in govern- 
ment and in fashion by those to whom 
none of the original conditions of leader- 
ship attach is a philosophical anomaly. 
How many of the living occupants of 
thrones, dukedoms, earldoms, and such 
high places are in position on their own 
merits, or would be put there by com- 
mon consent ? Referring their origin to 
some sort of an election, their contin- 
uance seems to rest simply on forbear- 
ance. Here in America we are trying a 
new experiment ; we have adopted the 
principle of election, but we have supple- 
mented it with the equally authoritative 
right of deposition. And it is interest- 
ing to see how it has worked for a hun- 
dred years, for it is human nature to like 
to be set up, but not to like to be set 
down. If in our elections we do not 
always get the best — perhaps few elec- 
tions ever did — we at least do not per- 
petuate forever in privilege our mistakes 
or our good hits. 



The celebration in New York, in 1889, 
of the inauguration of Washington was an 
instructive spectacle. How much of privi- 
lege had been gathered and perpetu- 
ated in a century ? Was it not an occa- 
sion that emphasized our republican de- 
mocracy ? Two things were conspicuous. 
One was that we did not honor a family, 
or a dynasty, or a title, but a character ; 
and the other was that we did not exalt 
any living man, but simply the office of 
President. It was a demonstration of 
the power of the people to create their 
own royalty, and then to put it aside when 
they have done with it. It was difficult 
to see how greater honors could have 
been paid to any man than were given to 
the President when he embarked at Eliza- 
bethport and advanced, through a harbor 
crowded with decorated vessels, to the 
great city, the wharves and roofs of which 
were black with human beings— a holi- 
day city which shook with the tumult of 
the popular welcome. Wherever he went 
he drew the swarms in the streets as the 
moon draws the tide. Republican sim- 
plicity need not fear comparison with 



any royal pageant when the President 
was received at the MetropoHtan, and, in 
a scene of beauty and opulence that 
might be the flowering of a thousand 
years instead of a century, stood upon the 
steps of the " dais " to greet the devoted 
Centennial Quadrille, which passed before 
him with the courageous Ave, Imperator, 
-morituri te salittamus. We had done 
it — we, the people ; that was our royalty. 
Nobody had imposed it on us. It was 
not even selected out of four hun- 
dred. We had taken one of the common 
people and set him up there, creating 
for the moment also a sort of royal fami- 
ly and a court for a background, in a 
splendor just as imposing for the passing 
hour as an imperial spectacle. We like 
to show that we can do it, and we like to 
show also that we can undo it. For at 
the banquet, where the Elected ate his 
dinner, not only in the presence of, but 
with, representatives of all the people of 
all the States, looked down on by the ac- 
knowledged higher power in American 
life, there sat also with him two men 
who had lately been in his great position, 



the centre only a little while ago, as he 
was at the moment, of every eye in the 
republic, now only common citizens with- 
out a title, without any insignia of rank, 
able to transmit to posterity no family 
privilege. If our hearts swelled with 
pride that we could create something 
just as good as royalty, that the republic 
had as many men of distinguished ap- 
pearance, as much beauty, and as much 
brilliance of display as any traditional 
government, we also felicitated ourselves 
that we could sweep it all away by a vote 
and reproduce it with new actors next 
day. 

It must be confessed that it was a peo- 
ple's affair. If at any time there was any 
idea that it could be controlled only by 
those who represented names honored 
for a hundred years, or conspicuous by 
any social privilege, the idea was swamped 
in popular feeling. The names that had 
been elected a hundred years ago did not 
stay elected unless the present owners 
were able to distinguish themselves. 
There is nothing so to be coveted in a 
country as the perpetuity of honorable 



names, and the "centennial" showed 
that we are rich in those that have been 
honorably borne, but it also showed that 
the century has gathered no privilege 
that can count upon permanence. 

But there is another aspect of the 
situation that is quite as serious and 
satisfactory. Now that the ladies of the 
present are coming to dress as ladies 
dressed a hundred years ago, we can 
make an adequate comparison of beauty. 
Heaven forbid that we should disparage 
the women of the Revolutionary period ! 
They looked as well as they could under 
all the circumstances of a new country 
and the hardships of an early settlement. 
Some of them looked exceedingly well — 
there were beauties in those days as there 
were giants in Old Testament times. 
The portraits that have come down to us 
of some of them excite our admiration, 
and indeed we have a sort of tradition of 
the loveliness of the women of that re- 
mote period. The gallant men of the 
time exalted them. Yet it must be ad- 
mitted by any one who witnessed the 
public and private gatherings of April 



1889, in New York, contributed to as they 
were by women from every State, and 
who is unprejudiced by family associa- 
tions, that the women of America seem 
vastly improved in personal appearance 
since the days when George Washington 
was a lover : that is to say, the number of 
beautiful women is greater in proportion 
to the population, and their beauty and 
charm are not inferior to those which 
have been so much extolled in the Revo- 
lutionary time. There is no doubt that 
if George Washington could have been 
at the Metropolitan ball he would have 
acknowledged this, and that while he 
might have had misgivings about some 
of our political methods, he would have 
been more proud than ever to be still ac- 
knowledged the Father of his Country. 





THE 
NEWSPAPER-MADE MAN 

FAIR correspondent — has 
|/ the phrase an old-time sound ? 
— thinks we should pay more 
attention to men. In a revolu- 
tionary time, when great ques- 
tions are in issue,minor matters,which may 
nevertheless be very important, are apt to 
escape the consideration they deserve. We 
share our correspondent's interest in men, 
but must plead the pressure of circum- 
stances. When there are so many Wom- 
an's Journals devoted to the wants and 
aspirations of women alone, it is perhaps 
time to think of having a Man's Journal, 
which should try to keep his head above- 
water in the struggle for social supremacy. 
When almost every number of the leading 
periodicals has a paper about Woman — 
written probably by a woman — Woman 
To-day, Woman Yesterday, Woman To- 
morrow ; when the inquiry is daily made 



in the press as to what is expected of 
woman, and the new requirements laid 
upon her by reason of her opportunities, 
her entrance into various occupations, her 
education — the impartial observer is likely 
to be confused, if he is not swept away by 
the rising tide of femininity in modern life. 

But this very superiority of interest in 
the future of women is a warning to man 
to look about him, and see where in this 
tide he is going to land, if he will float or 
go ashore, and what will be his character 
and his position in the new social order. 
It will not do for him to sit on the stump 
of one of his prerogatives that woman has 
felled, and say with Brahma, " They reck- 
on ill who leave me out," for in the day 
of the Subjection of Man it may be little 
consolation that he is left in. 

It must be confessed that man has had 
a long inning. Perhaps it is true that he 
owed this to his physical strength, and 
that he will only keep it hereafter by in- 
tellectual superiority, by the dominance 
of mind. And how in this generation is 
he equipping himself for the future ? He 
is a money-making animal. That is be- 



yond dispute. Never before were there 
such business men as this generation can 
show — Napoleons of finance, Alexanders 
of adventure, Shakespeares of specula- 
tion, Porsons of accumulation. He is 
great in his field, but is he leaving the 
intellectual province to woman ? Does 
he read as much as she does .-" Is he 
becoming anything but a newspaper- 
made person ? Is his mind getting to 
be like the newspaper ? Speaking gener- 
ally of the mass of business men — and 
the mass are business men in this country 
— have they any habit of reading books ? 
They have clubs, to be sure, but of what 
sort ? With the exception of a conversa- 
tion club here and there, and a literary 
club, more or less perfunctory, are they 
not mostly social clubs for comfort and 
idle lounging, many of them known, as oth- 
er workmen are, by their " chips ?" What 
sort of a book would a member make 
out of " Chips from my Workshop ?'' 
Do the young men, to any extent, join 
in Browning clubs and Shakespeare clubs 
and Dante clubs ? Do they meet for 
the study of history, of authors, of lit- 



13 



erary periods, for reading, and discussing 
what they read ? Do they in concert 
dig in the encyclopsedias, and write pa- 
pers about the correlation of forces, and 
about Savonarola, and about the Three 
Kings ? In fact, what sort of a hand 
would the Three Kings suggest to them ? 
In the large cities the women's clubs, pur- 
suing literature, art, languages, botany, 
history, geography, geology, mythology, 
are innumerable. And there is hardly a 
village in the land that has not from one 
to six clubs of young girls who meet once 
a week for some intellectual purpose. 
What are the young men of the villages 
and the cities doing meantime ? How 
are they preparing to meet socially these 
young ladies who are cultivating their 
minds ? Are they adapting themselves 
to the new conditions ? Or are they 
counting, as they always have done, on 
the adaptability of women, on the facil- 
ity with which the members of the bright 
sex can interest themselves in base-ball 
and the speed of horses and the chances 
of the " street ?" Is it comfortable for 
the young man, when the talk is about the 



14 



last notable book, or the philosophy of the 
popular poet or novelist, to feel that laugh- 
ing eyes are sounding his ignorance ? 

Man is a noble creation, and he has fine 
and sturdy qualities which command the 
admiration of the other sex ; but how will 
it be when that sex, by reason of superior 
acquirements, is able to look down on him 
intellectually ? It used to be said that 
women are what men wish to have them, 
that they endeavored to be the kind of 
women who would win masculine admi- 
ration. How will it be if women have 
determined to make themselves what it 
pleases them to be, and to cultivate their 
powers in the expectation of pleasing men, 
if they indulge any such expectation, by 
their higher qualities only ? This is not 
a fanciful possibility. It is one that young 
men will do well to ponder. It is easy to 
ridicule the literary and economic and his- 
torical societies, and the naive courage 
with which young women in them attack 
the gravest problems, and to say that they 
are only a passing fashion, like decorative 
art and a mode of dress. But a fashion 
is not to be underestimated ; and when a 



15 



fashion continues and spreads like this 
one, it is significant of a great change 
going on in society. And it is to be no- 
ticed that this fashion is accompanied by 
other phenomena as interesting. There is 
scarcely an occupation, once confined al- 
most exclusively to men, in which women 
are not now conspicuous. Never before 
were there so many women who are su- 
perior musicians, performers themselves 
and organizers of musical societies ; nev- 
er before so many women who can draw 
well ; never so many who are successful 
in literature, who write stories, translate, 
compile, and are acceptable workers in 
magazines and in publishing houses ; and 
never before were so many women read- 
ing good books, and thinking about them, 
and talking about them, and trying to ap- 
ply the lessons in them to the problems of 
their own lives, which are seen not to end 
with marriage. A great deal of this activ- 
ity, crude much of it, is on the intellectual 
side, and must tell strongly bj^-and-by in 
the position of women. And the young 
men will take notice that it is the intel- 
lectual force that must dominate in life. 



INTERESTING GIRLS 




'T seems hardly worth 
while to say that this 
would be a more inter- 
esting country if there 
were more interesting 
people in it. But the 
remark is worth con- 
sideration in a land 
where things are so much estimated by 
what they cost. It is a very expensive 
country, especially so in the matter of edu- 
cation, and one cannot but reflect whether 
the result is in proportion to the outlay. 
It costs a great many thousands of dollars 
and over four years of time to produce a 
really good base-ball player, and the 
time and money invested in the produc- 
tion of a society young woman are not 
less. No complaint is made of the cost of 
these schools of the higher education ; the 
point is whether they produce interesting 



17 



people. Of course all women are inter- 
esting. It has got pretty well noised 
about the world that American women 
are, on the whole, more interesting than 
any others. This statement is not made 
boastfully, but simply as a market quota- 
tion, as one might say. They are sought 
for ; they rule high. They have a " way ;" 
they know how to be fascinating, to be 
agreeable ; they unite freedom of man- 
ner with modesty of behavior ; they are 
apt to have beauty, and if they have not, 
they know how to make others think 
they have. Probably the Greek girls in 
their highest development under Pheidi- 
as were never so attractive as the Ameri- 
can girls of this period ; and if we had a 
Pheidias who could put their charms in 
marble, all the antique galleries would 
close up and go out of business. 

But it must be understood that in 
regard to them, as to the dictionaries, it 
is necessary to " get the best." Not all 
women are equally interesting, and some 
of those on whom most educational 
money is lavished are the least so. It 
can be said broadly that everybody is 



interesting up to a certain point. There 
is no human being from whom the in- 
quiring mind cannot learn something. 
It is so with women. Some are interest- 
ing for five minutes, some for ten, some 
for an hour ; some are not exhausted in 
a whole day ; and some (and this shows 
the signal leniency of Providence) are 
perennially entertaining, even in the 
presence of masculine stupidity. Of 
course the radical trouble of this world 
is that there are not more people who 
are interesting comrades, day in and day 
out, for a lifetime. It is greatly to the 
credit of American women that so many 
of them have this quality, and have 
developed it, unprotected, in free com- 
petition with all countries which have 
been pouring in women without the least 
duty laid upon their grace or beauty. 
We have a tariff upon knowledge — we 
try to shut out all of that by a duty on 
books ; we have a tariff on piety and in- 
telligence in a duty on clergymen ; we 
try to exclude art by a levy on it ; but we 
have never excluded the raw material of 
beauty, and the result is that we can sue- 



'9 

cessfully compete in the markets of the 
world. 

This, however, is a digression. The 
reader wants to know what this quahty 
of being interesting, has to do with girls' 
schools. It is admitted that if one goes 
into a new place he estimates the agree- 
ableness of it according to the number 
of people it contains with whom it is a 
pleasure to converse, who have either the 
ability to talk well or the intelligence to 
listen appreciatingly even if deceivingly, 
whose society has the beguiling charm that 
makes even natural scenery satisfactory. 
It is admitted also that in our day the 
burden of this end of life, making it agree- 
able, is mainly thrown upon women. 
Men make their business an excuse for 
not being entertaining, or the few who 
cultivate the mind (aside from the politi- 
cians, who always try to be winning) 
scarcely think it worth while to contrib- 
ute anything to make society bright and 
engaging. Now if the girls' schools and 
colleges, technical and other, merely add 
to the number of people who have prac- 
tical training and knowledge without 



personal charm, what becomes of social 
life ? We are impressed with the excel- 
lence of the schools and colleges for 
women — impressed also with the co-ed- 
ucating institutions. There is no sight 
more inspiring than an assemblage of 
four or five hundred young women at- 
tacking literature, science, and all the 
arts. The grace and courage of the attack 
alone are worth all it costs. All the arts 
and science and literature are benefited, 
but one of the chief purposes that should 
be in view is unattained if the young 
women are not made more interesting, 
both to themselves and to others. Ability 
to earn an independent living may be 
conceded to be important, health is indis- 
pensable, and beauty of face and form 
are desirable ; knowledge is priceless, 
and unselfish amiability is above the 
price of rubies ; but how shall we set a 
value, so far as the pleasure of living is 
concerned, upon the power to be inter- 
esting } We hear a good deal about the 
highly educated young woman with 
reverence, about the emancipated young 
woman with fear and trembling, but 



what can take the place of the interest- 
ing woman ? Anxiety is this moment 
agitating the minds of tens of thousands 
of mothers about the education of their 
daughters. Suppose their education 
should be directed to the purpose of 
making them interesting women, what a 
fascinating country this would be about 
the year 1 900 ! 




ON.H ■' 



IVE 



the men a chance. Upon the 
young women of America lies a great re- 
sponsibility. The next generation will 
be pretty much what they choose to 
make it ; and what are they doing for the 
elevation of young men ? It is true that 
there are the colleges for men, which still 
perform a good work — though some of 
them run a good deal more to a top-dress- 
ing of accomplishments than to a sub- 
soiling of discipline — but these colleges 
reach comparatively few. There remain 
the great mass who are devoted to busi- 
ness and pleasure, and only get such intel- 
lectual cultivation as society gives them 
or they chance to pick up in current 
publications. The young women are the 
leisure class, consequently — so we hear 
— the cultivated class. Taking a cer- 
tain large proportion of our society, the 
women in it toil not, neither do tliev 



23 



spin ; they do little or no domestic work ; 
they engage in no productive occupation. 
They are set apart for a high and enno- 
bling service — the cultivation of the mind 
and the rescue of society from material- 
ism. They are the influence that keeps 
life elevated and sweet — are they not ? 
For what other purpose are they set 
apart in elegant leisure ? And nobly do 
they climb up to the duties of their posi- 
tion. They associate together in es- 
oteric, intellectual societies. Every one 
is a part of many clubs, the object of 
which is knowledge and the broaden- 
ing of the intellectual horizon. Science, 
languages, literature, are their daily food. 
They can speak in tongues ; they can 
talk about the solar spectrum ; they can 
interpret Chaucer, criticise Shakespeare, 
understand Browning. There is no liter- 
ature, ancient or modern, that they do 
not dig up by the roots and turn over, 
no history that they do not drag before the 
club for final judgment. In every little 
village there is this intellectual stir and 
excitement ; why, even in New York, 
readings interfere with the german ; and 



24 



Boston ! Boston is no longer divided 
into wards, but into Browning " sec- 
tions." 

All this is mainly the work of wom- 
en. The men are sometimes admitted, 
are even hired to perform and be encour- 
aged and criticised ; that is, men who are 
already highly cultivated, or who are in 
sympathy with the noble feminization 
of the age. It is a glorious movement. 
Its professed object is to give an intel- 
lectual lift to society. And no doubt, 
unless all reports are exaggerated, it is 
making our great leisure class of women 
highly intellectual beings. But, encour- 
aging as this prospect is, it gives us 
pause. Who are these young women to 
associate with } — with whom are they to 
hold high converse ? For life is a two- 
fold affair. And meantime what is being 
done for the young men who are ex- 
pected to share in the high society of the 
future } Will not the young women by- 
and-by find themselves in a lonesome 
place, cultivated away beyond their 
natural comrades ? Where will they 
spend their evenings } This sobering 



25 



thought suggests a duty that the young 
women are neglecting. We refer to the 
education of the young men. It is all very 
well for them to form clubs for their own 
advancement, and they ought not to in- 
cur the charge of selfishness in so doing ; 
but how much better would they fulfil 
their mission if they would form special 
societies for the cultivation of young 
men ! — sort of intellectual mission bands. 
Bring them into the literary circle. Make 
it attractive for them. Women with 
their attractions, not to speak of their 
wiles, can do anything they set out to do. 
They can elevate the entire present gen- 
eration of young men, if they give their 
minds to it, to care for the intellectual 
pursuits they care for. Give the men a 
chance, and — 

Musing along in this way we are sud- 
denly pulled up by the reflection that it 
is impossible to make an unqualified 
statement that is wholly true about any- 
thing. What chance have I, anyway ? in- 
quires the young man who thinks some- 
times and occasionally wants to read. 
What sort of leading-strings are these 



26 



that I am getting into ? Look at the 
drift of things. Is the feminization of 
the world a desirable thing for a vigor- 
ous future ? Are the women, or are they 
not, taking all the virility out of litera- 
ture ? Answer me that. All the novels 
are written by, for, or about women — 
brought to their standard. Even Henry 
James, who studies the sex untiringly, 
speaks about the " feminization of litera- 
ture." They write most of the news- 
paper correspondence — and write it for 
women. They are even trying to femin- 
ize the colleges. Granted that woman is 
the superior being ; all the more, what 
chance is there for man if this sort of 
thing goes on ? Are you going to make 
a race of men on feminine fodder ? And 
here is the still more perplexing part of 
it. Unless all analysis of the female 
heart is a delusion, and all history false, 
what women like most of all things in 
this world is a Man, virile, forceful, com- 
pelling, a solid rock of dependence, a 
substantial unfeminine being, whom it 
is some satisfaction and glory and inter- 
est to govern and rule in the right way. 



27 



and twist round the feminine finger. If 
women should succeed in reducing or 
raising — of course raising — men to the 
feminine standard, by feminizing soci- 
et}^ literature, the colleges, and all that, 
would they not turn on their creations — 
for even the Bible intimates that wom- 
en are uncertain — and go in search 
of a Man ? It is this sort of blind in- 
stinct of the young man for preserving 
himself in the world that makes him so 
inaccessible to the good he might get 
from the prevailing culture of the lei- 
sure class. 



THE ADVENT OF CANDOR 

Those who are anxious about the fate 
of Christmas, whether it is not becoming 
too worldly and too expensive a holiday- 
to be indulged in except by the very poor, 
mark with pleasure any indications that 
the true spirit of the day — brotherhood 
and self-abnegation and charity — is infus- 
ing itself into modern society. The sen- 
timental Christmas of thirty years ago 
could not last ; in time the manufactured 
jollity got to be more tedious and a 
greater strain on the feelings than any 
misfortune happening to one's neighbor. 
Even for a day it was very difficult to 
buzz about in the cheery manner pre- 
scribed, and the reaction put human 
nature in a bad light. Nor was it much 
better when gradually the day became 
one of Great Expectations, and the sweet 
spirit of it was quenched in worry or 
soured in disappointment. It began to 



31 



take on the aspect of a great lottery,' in 
which one class expected to draw in 
reverse proportion to what it put in, and 
another class knew that it would only 
reap as it had sowed. The day, blessed 
in its origin, and meaningless if there is a 
grain of selfishness in it, was thus likely 
to become a sort of Clearing-house of all 
obligations, and assume a commercial as- 
pect that took the heart out of it — like 
the enormous receptions for paying social 
debts which take the place of the old- 
fashioned hospitality. Everybody knew, 
meantime, that the spirit of good-will, the 
grace of universal sympathy, was really 
growing in the world, and that it was 
only our awkwardness that, by striving 
to cram it all for a year into twenty-four 
hours, made it seem a little farcical. And 
everybody knows that when goodness be- 
comes fashionable, goodness is likely to 
suffer a little. A virtue overdone falls on 
t'other side. And a holiday that takes on 
such proportions that the Express com- 
panies and the Post-ofiice cannot handle 
it is in danger of a collapse. In consider- 
ation of these things, and because, as has 



32 



been pointed out year after year, Christ- 
mas is becoming a burden, the load of 
which is looked forward to with appre- 
hension — and back on with nervous pros- 
tration — fear has been expressed that the 
dearest of all holidays in Christian lands 
would have to go again under a sort of 
Puritan protest, or into a retreat for rest 
and purification. 

We are enabled to announce for the 
encouragement of the single-minded in 
this best of all days, at the close of a 
year which it is best not to characterize, 
that those who stand upon the social 
watch-towers in Europe and America 
begin to see a light — or, it would be bet- 
ter to say, to perceive a spirit — in society 
which is likely to change many things, 
and, among others, to work a return of 
Christian simplicity. As might be ex- 
pected in these days, the spirit is ex- 
hibited in the sex which is first at the 
wedding and last in the hospital ward. 
And as might have been expected, also, 
this spirit is shown by the young woman 
of the period, in whose hands are the 
issues of the future. If she preserve her 



33 



present mind long enough, Christmas 
will become a day that will satisfy every 
human being, for the purpose of the young 
woman will pervade it. The tendency of 
the young woman generally to simplicity, 
of the American young woman to a cer- 
tain restraint (at least when abroad), to a 
deference to h'^r elders, and to tradition, 
has been noted . The present phenomenon 
is quite beyond this, and more radical. It 
is, one may venture to say, an attempt to 
conform the inner being to the outward 
simplicity. If one could suspect the 
young woman of taking up any line not 
original, it might be guessed that the 
present fashion (which is bewildering the 
most w^orldly men with a new and irre- 
sistible fascination) was set by the self- 
revelations of Marie Bashkirtseff. Very 
likely, however, it was a new spirit in the 
world, of which Marie was the first pub- 
lishing example. Its note is self-analysis, 
searching, unsparing, leaving no room for 
the deception of self or of the world. Its 
leading feature is extreme candor. It is 
not enough to tell the truth (that has 
been told before) ; but one must act and 

3 



34 



tell the whole truth. One does not put 
on the shirt front and the standing collar 
and the knotted cravat of the other sex 
as a mere form ; it is an att of consecra- 
tion, of rigid, simple come-out-ness into 
the light of truth. This noble candor 
will suffer no concealments. She would 
not have her lover even, still more the 
general world of men, think she is better, 
or rather other, than she is. Not that 
she would like to appear a man among 
men, far from that ; but she wishes to 
talk with candor and be talked to can- 
didly, without taking advantage of that 
false shelter of sex behind which women 
have been accused of dodging. If she is 
nothing else, she is sincere, one might say 
wantonly sincere. And this lucid, candid 
inner life is reflected in her dress. This 
is not only simple in its form, in its lines; 
it is severe. To go into the shop of a 
European modiste is almost to put one's 
self into a truthful and candid frame of 
mind. Those leave frivolous ideas behind 
who enter here. The modiste will tell 
the philosopher that it is now the fashion 
to be severe ; it a word, it \sfesc/i. Noth- 



I! 



35 



ing can go beyond that. And it symbol- 
izes the whole life, its self-examination, 
earnestness, utmost candor in speech and 
conduct. 

The statesman who is busy about his 
tariff and his reciprocity, and his endeavor 
to raise money like potatoes, may little 
heed and much undervalue this advent of 
candor into the world as a social force. 
But the philosopher will make no such 
mistake. He knows that they who build 
without woman build in vain, and that 
she is the great regenerator, as she is the 
great destroyer. He knows too much to 
disregard the gravity of any fashionable 
movement. He knows that there is no 
power on earth that can prevent the re- 
turn of the long skirt. And that if the 
young woman has decided to be severe 
and candid and frank with herself and in 
her intercourse with others, we must sub- 
mit and thank God. 

And what a gift to the world is this for 
the Christmas season ! The clear-eyed 
young woman of the future, always dear 
and often an anxiety, will this year be an 
object of enthusiasm. 




HE American man only develops him- 
self and spreads himself and grows "for 
all he is worth " in the Great West. He 
is more free and limber there, and un- 
folds those generous peculiarities and 
largenesses of humanity which never 
blossomed before. The "environment" 
has much to do with it. The great spaces 
over which he roams contribute to the 
enlargement of his mental horizon. There 
have been races before who roamed the 
illimitable desert, but they travelled on 
foot or on camel-back, and were limited 
in their range. There was nothing con- 
tinental about them, as there is about 
our railway desert travellers, who swing 
along through thousands of miles of 
sand and sage-bush with a growing con- 
tempt for time and space. But expan- 
sive and great as these people have be- 
come under the new conditions, we have 



37 



a fancy that the development of the race 
has only just begun, and that the future 
will show us in perfection a kind of man 
new to the world. Out somewhere on 
the Sante Fe route, where the desert of 
one day was like the desert of the day 
before, and the Pullman car rolls and 
swings over the wide waste beneath the 
blue sky day after day, under its black flag 
of smoke, in the early gray of morning, 
when the men were waiting their turns at 
the ablution bowls, a slip of a boy, perhaps 
aged seven, stood balancing himself on 
his little legs, clad in knickerbockers, 
biding his time, with all the nonchalance 
of an old campaigner. "How did you 
sleep, cap ?" asked a well-meaning elderly 
gentleman. "Well, thank you," was the 
dignified response ; '' as I always do on a 
sleepi7ig-car." Always does ? Great hor- 
rors ! Hardly out of his swaddling- 
clothes, and yet he always sleeps w^ell in a 
sleeper ! Was he born on the wheels } was 
he cradled in a Pullman ? He has always 
been in motion, probably ; he was started 
at thirty miles an hour, no doubt, this 
marvellous boy of our new era. He was 



38 



not born in a house at rest, but the loco- 
motive snatched him along with a shriek 
and a roar before his eyes were fairl}^ 
open, and he was rocked in a " section," 
and his first sensation of life was that of 
moving rapidly over vast arid spaces, 
through cattle ranges and along can- 
ons. The effect of quick and easy 
locomotion on character may have been 
noted before, but it seems that here is 
the production of a new sort of man, the 
direct product of our railway era. It is 
not simply that this boy is mature, but 
he must be a different and a nobler sort 
of boy than one born, say, at home or on 
a canal-boat ,- for, whether he was born on 
the rail or not, he belongs to the railway 
system of civilization. Before he gets into 
trousers he is old in experience, and he 
has discounted many of the novelties 
that usually break gradually on the pil- 
grim in this world. He belongs to the 
new expansive race that must live in 
motion, whose proper home is the Pull- 
man (which will probaby be improved in 
time into a dustless, sweet-smelling, well- 
aired bedroom), and whose domestic life 



39 



will be on the wing, so to speak. The 
Inter-State Commerce Bill will pass him 
along without friction from end to end of 
the Union, and perhaps a uniform divorce 
law will enable him to change his mari- 
tal relations at any place where he hap- 
pens to dine. This promising lad is only a 
faint itimation of what we are all coming 
to when we fully acquire the freedom of 
the continent, and come into that expan- 
siveness of feeling and of language which 
characterizes the Great West. It is a 
burst of joyous exuberance that comes 
from the sense of an illimitable horizon. 
It shows itself in the tender words of a 
local newspaper at Bowie, Arizona, on 
the death of a beloved citizen : " ' Death 
loves a shining mark,' and she hit a 
dandy when she turned loose on Jim." 
And also in the closing words of a New 
Mexico obituary, which the Kansas Mag- 
azine qwot^^: "Her tired spirit was re- 
leased from the pain-racking body and 
soared aloft to eternal glory at 4.30 Den- 
ver time." We die, as it were, in motion, 
as we sleep, and there is nowhere any 
boundary to our expansion. Perhaps we 



40 



shall never again know any rest as we 
now understand the term — rest being 
only change of motion — and we shall 
not be able to sleep except on the cars, and 
whether we die by Denver time or by 
the 90th meridian, we shall only change 
our time. Blessed be this slip of a boy 
who is a man before he is an infant, and 
teaches us what rapid transit can do for 
our race ! The only thing that can pos- 
sibly hinder us in our progress will be 
second childhood ; we have abolished 
first. 



THE ELECTRIC WAY 

We are quite in the electric way. We 
boast that we have made electricity our 
slave, but the slave whom we do not un- 
derstand is our master. And before we 
know him we shall be transformed. Mr. 
Edison proposes to send us over the 
country at the rate of one hundred miles 
an hour. This pleases us, because we 
fancy we shall save time, and because we 
are taught that the chief object in life is 
to "get there " quickly. We really have 
an idea that it is a gain to annihilate dis- 
tance, forgetting that as a matter of per- 
sonal experience we are already too near 
most people. But this speed by rail will 
enable us to live in Philadelphia and do 
business in New York. It will make the 
city of Chicago two hundred miles square. 
And the bigger Chicago is, the more im- 
portant this world becomes. This pleas- 
ing anticipation — that of travelling by 



42 



lightning, and all being huddled togethe 
— is nothing to the promised universal il- 
lumination by a diffused light that shall 
make midnight as bright as noonday. We 
shall then save all the time there is, 
and at the age of thirty-five have lived 
the allotted seventy years, and long, if not 
for Gotterddminerimg, at least for some 
world where, by touching a button, we 
can discharge our limbs of electricit);- and 
take a little repose. The most restless 
and ambitious of us can hardly conceive 
of Chicago as a desirable future state of 
existence. 

This, however, is only the external or 
superficial view of the subject ; at the 
best it is only symbolical. Mr. Edison is 
wasting his time in objective experiments, 
while we are in the deepest ignorance as 
to our electric personality or our personal 
electricity. We begin to apprehend that 
we are electric beings, that these outward 
manifestations of a subtle form are only 
hints of our internal state. Mr. Edison 
should turn his attention from physics to 
humanity electrically considered in its so- 
cial condition. We have heard a great 




45 



deal about aflfinities. We are told that 
one person is positive and another nega- 
tive, and that representing socially oppo- 
site poles they should come together and 
make an electric harmony, that two pos- 
itives or two negatives repel each other, 
and if conventionally united end in di- 
vorce, and so on. We read that such a 
man is magnetic, meaning that he can 
poll a great many votes ; or that such a 
woman thrilled her audience, meaning 
probably that they were in an electric 
condition to be shocked by her. Now 
this is what we want to find out — to 
know if persons are really magnetic or 
sympathetic, and how to tell whether a 
person is positive or negative. In politics 
we are quite at sea. What is the good of 
sending a man to Washington at the rate 
of a hundred miles an hour if we are un- 
certain of his electric state .^ The ideal 
House of Representatives ought to be 
pretty nearly balanced — half positive, half 
negative. Some Congresses seem to be 
made up pretty much of negatives. The 
time for the electrician to test the candi- 
date is before he is put in nomination. 



not dump him into Congress as we do 
now, utterly ignorant of whether his cur- 
rents run from his heels to his head or 
from his head to his heels, uncertain, in- 
deed, as to whether he has ma<;netism to 
run in at all. Nothing could be more un- 
scientific than the process and the result. 
In social life it is infinitely worse. You, 
an electric unmarried man, enter a room 
full of attractive women. How are you 
to know who is positive and who is nega- 
tive, or who is a maiden lady in equilib- 
rium, if it be true, as scientists afiirm, that 
the genus old maid is one in whom the 
positive currents neutralize the negative 
currents ? Your affinity is perhaps the 
plainest woman in the room. But beauty 
is a juggling sprite, entirely uncontrolled 
by electricity, and you are quite likely to 
make a mistake. It is absurd the way we 
blunder on in a scientific age. We touch 
a button, and are married. The judge 
touches another button, and we are di- 
vorced. If when we touched the first but- 
ton it revealed us both negatives, we 
should start back in horror, for it is only 
before engagement that two negatives 



47 



make an affirmative. That is the reason 
that some clergymen refuse to marry a 
divorced woman ; they see that she has 
made one electric mistake, and fear she 
will make another. It is all very well for 
the officiating clergyman to ask the two 
intending to commit matrimony if they 
have a license from the town clerk, if 
they are of age or have the consent of 
parents, and have a million ; but the vital 
point is omitted. Are they electric affin- 
ities ? It should be the duty of the town 
clerk, by a battery, or by some means to 
be discovered by electricians, to find out 
the galvanic habit of ' the parties, their 
prevailing electric condition. Tempora- 
rily they may seem to be in harmony, and 
may deceive themselves into the belief 
that they are at opposite poles equidis- 
tant from the equator, and certain to meet 
on that imaginary line in matrimonial 
bliss. Dreadful will be the awakening to 
an insipid life, if they find they both have 
the same sort of currents. It is said that 
women change their minds and their dis- 
positions, that men are fickle, and that 
both give way after marriage to natural 



inclinations that were suppressed while 
they were on the good behavior that the 
supposed necessity of getting married im- 
poses. This is so notoriously true that it 
ought to create a public panic. But there 
is hope in the new light. If we under- 
stand it, persons are born in a certain 
electrical condition, and substantially 
continue in it, however much they may 
apparently wobble about under the in- 
fluence of infirm minds and acquired 
wickedness. There are, of course, varia- 
tions of the compass to be reckoned with, 
and the magnet may occasionally be be- 
witched by near and powerful attracting 
objects. But, on the whole, the magnet 
remains the same, and it is probable that 
a person's normal electric condition is 
the thing in him least liable to dangerous 
variation. If this be true, the best basis 
for matrimony is the electric, and our so- 
cial life would have fewer disappoint- 
ments if men and women went about la- 
belled with their scientifically ascertained 
electric qualities. 




AN a husband open his wife's letters? 
That would depend, many would say, 
upon what kind of a husband he is. But 
it cannot be put aside in that flippant 
manner, for it is a legal right that is in 
question, and it has recently been de- 
cided in a Paris tribunal that the hus- 
band has the right to open the letters 
addressed to his wife. Of course in 
America an appeal would instantly be 
taken from this decision, and perhaps by 
husbands themselves ; for in this world 
rights are becoming so impartially dis- 
tributed that this privilege granted to 
the husband might at once be extended 
to the wife, and she would read all his 
business correspondence, and his busi- 
ness is sometimes various and compli- 
cated. The Paris decision must be based 
upon the familiar formula that man and 



so 



wife are one, and that that one is the hus- 
band. If a man has the right to read all the 
letters written to his wife, being his prop- 
erty by reason of his ownership of her, 
why may he not have a legal right to 
know all that is said to her ? The Ques- 
tion is not whether a wife ought to re- 
ceive letters that her husband may^. not 
read, or listen to talk that he ma5^ ■■•not 
hear, but whet]jer he has a sort of lord- 
ship that gives him privileges whiclyshe 
does not enjoy. In our modern notion 
of marriage, which is getting itself, ex- 
pressed in statute law, marriage is '.sup- 
posed to rest on mutual trust and mutual 
rights. In theory the husband and wife 
are still one, and there can nothing come 
into the life of one that is not shared by 
the other; in fact, if the marriage is perfect 
and the trust absolute, the personality of 
each is respected by the other, and each 
is freely the judge of what shall be con- 
tributed to the common confidence ; and 
if there are any concealments, it is well 
believed that they are for the mutual 
good. If every one were as perfect in 
the marriage relation as those who are 



51 



reading these lines, the question of the 
wife's letters would never arise. The 
man, trusting his wife, would not care to 
pry into any little secrets his wife might 
have, or bother himself about her cor- 
respondence ; he would know, indeed, 
that if he had lost her real affection, a 
surveillance of her letters could not 
restore it. 

Perhaps it is a modern notion that 
marriage is a union of trust and not of 
suspicion, of expectation of faithfulness 
the more there is freedom. At any rate, 
the tendency, notwithstanding the French 
decision, is away from the common-law 
suspicion and tyranny towards a higher 
trust in an enlarged freedom. And it is 
certain that the rights cannot all be on one 
side and the duties on the other. If the 
husband legally may compel his wife to 
show him her letters, the courts will before 
long grant the same privilege to the wife. 
But, without pressing this point, we hold 
strongly to the sacredness of correspon- 
dence. The letters one receives are in 
one sense not his own. They contain the 
confessions of another soul, the confi- 



52 



dences of another mind, that would be 
rudely treated if given any sort of pub- 
licity. And while husband and wife are 
one to each other, they are two in the eyes 
of other people, and it may well happen 
that a friend will desire to impart some- 
thing to a discreet woman which she 
would not intrust to the babbling hus- 
band of that woman. Every life must 
have its own privacy and its own place of 
retirement. The letter is of all things 
the most personal and intimate thing. 
Its bloom is gone when another eye sees 
it before the one for which it was intended. 
Its aroma all escapes when it is first 
opened by another person. One might 
as well wear second-hand clothing as get 
a second-hand letter. Here, then, is a 
sacred right that ought to be respected, 
and can be respected without any injury 
to domestic life. The habit in some 
families for the members of it to show 
each other's letters is a most disenchant- 
ing one. It is just in the family, between 
persons most intimate, that these delica- 
cies of consideration for the privacy of 
each ought to be most respected. No 



53 



one can estimate probably how much of 
the refinement, of the delicacy of feeling, 
has been lost to the world by the intro- 
duction of the postal-card. Anything 
written on a postal-card has no personal- 
ity ; it is banal, and has as little power of 
charming any one who receives it as an 
advertisement in the newspaper. It is 
not simply the cheapness of the com- 
munication that is vulgar, but the pub- 
licity of it. One may have perhaps only a 
cent's worth of affection to send, but it 
seems worth much more when enclosed 
in an envelope. We have no doubt, 
then, that on general principles the French 
decision is a mistake, and that it tends 
rather to vulgarize than to retain the 
purity and delicacy of the marriage re- 
lation. And the judges, so long even as 
men only occupy the bench, will no 
doubt reverse it when the logical march 
of events forces upon them the question 
whether the wife may open her husband's 
letters. 



A LEISURE CLASS 

Foreign critics have apologized for 
real or imagined social and literary short- 
comings in this country on the ground 
that the American people have little lei- 
sure. It is supposed that when we have 
a leisure class we shall not only make a 
better showing in these respects, but we 
shall be as agreeable — having time to 
devote to the art of being agreeable — as 
the English are. But we already have a 
considerable and increasing number of 
people who can command their own time 
if we have not a leisure class, and the so- 
ciologist might begin to study the effect 
of this leisureliness upon society. Are 
the people who, by reason of a compe- M 
tence or other accidents of good-fortune, " 
have most leisure, becoming more agree- 
able ? and are they devoting themselves 
to the elevation of the social tone, or to 
the improvement of our literature ? How- 



i 



55 



ever this question is answered, a strong 
appeal might be made to the people of 
leisure to do not only what is expected 
of them by foreign observers, but to take 
advantage of their immense opportuni- 
ties. In a republic there is no room for 
a leisure class that is not useful. Those 
who use their time merely to kill it, in 
imitation of those born to idleness and 
to no necessity of making an exertion, 
may be ornamental, but having no root 
in any established privilege to sustain 
them, they will soon wither away in this 
atmosphere, as a flower would which 
should set up to be an orchid when it 
does not belong to the orchid family. It 
is required here that those who are eman- 
cipated from the daily grind should vin- 
dicate their right to their position not 
only by setting an example of self-cult- 
ure, but by contributing something to 
the general welfare. It is thought by 
many that if society here were established 
and settled as it is elsewhere, the rich 
would be less dominated by their money 
and less conscious of it, and having lei- 
sure, could devote themselves even more 



56 



than they do now to intellectual and spir- 
itual pursuits. 

Whether these anticipations will ever 
be realized, and whether increased leisure 
will make us all happy, is a subject of im- 
portance ; but it is secondary, and in a 
manner incidental, to another and deep- 
er matter, which may be defined as the 
responsibility of attractiveness. And this 
responsibility takes two forms — the duty 
of every one to be attractive, and the dan- 
ger of being too attractive. To be win- 
ning and agreeable is sometimes reck- 
oned a gift, but it is a disposition that 
can be cultivated ; and, in a world so 
given to grippe and misapprehension as 
this is, personal attractiveness becomes a 
duty, if it is not an art, that might be 
taught in the public schools. It used to 
be charged against New Englanders that 
they regarded this gift as of little value, 
and were inclined to hide it under a 
bushel, and it was said of some of their 
neighbors in the Union that they exag- 
gerated its importance, and neglected the 
weightier things of the law. Indeed, dis- 
putes have arisen as to what attractive- 



59 



ness consisted in — some holding that 
beauty or charm of manner (which is al- 
most as good) and sweetness and gayety 
were sufficient, while others held that a 
little intelligence sprinkled in was essen- 
tial. But one thing is clear, that while 
-women were held to strict responsibility 
in this matter, not stress enough was laid 
upon the equal duty of men to be attract- 
ive in order to make the world agree- 
able. Hence it is, probably, that while 
no question has been raised as to the ef- 
fect of the higher education upon the at- 
tractiveness of men, the colleges for girls 
have been jealously watched as to the ef- 
fect they were likely to have upon the at- 
tractiveness of women. Whether the col- 
lege years of a young man, during which 
he knows more than he will ever know 
again, are his most attractive period is 
not considered, for he is expected to de- 
velop what is in him later on ; but it is 
gravely questioned whether girls who 
give their minds to the highest studies 
are not dropping those graces of person- 
al attractiveness which they will find it 
difficult to pick up again. Of course 



6o 



such a question as this could never arise 
except in just such a worid as this is. 
For in an ideal world it could be shown 
that the highest intelligence and the 
highest personal charm are twins. If, 
therefore, it should turn out, which seems 
absurd, that college - educated girls are 
not as attractive as other women with 
less advantages, it will have to be admit- 
ted that something is the matter with 
the young ladies, which is preposterous, 
or that the system is still defective. For 
the postulate that everybody ought to be 
attractive cannot be abandoned for the 
sake of any system. Decision on this sys- 
tem cannot be reached without long ex- 
perience, for it is always to be remem- 
bered that -the man's point of view of 
attractiveness may shift, and he may 
come to regard the intellectual graces 
as supremely attractive ; while, on the 
other hand, the woman student may find 
that a winning smile is just as effective 
in bringing a man to her feet, where he 
belongs, as a logarithm. 

The danger of being too attractive, 
though it has historic illustration, is 



6i 



thought by many to be more apparent 
than real. Merely being too attractive 
has often been confounded with a love 
of flirtation and conquest, unbecoming 
always in a man, and excused in a woman 
on the ground of her helplessness. It 
could easily be shown that to use per- 
sonal attractiveness recklessly to the ex- 
tent of hopeless beguilement is cruel, and 
it may be admitted that woman ought to 
be held to strict responsibility for her at- 
tractiveness. The lines are indeed hard 
for her. The duty is upon her in this 
poor world of being as attractive as she 
can, and yet she is held responsible for 
all the mischief her attractiveness pro- 
duces. As if the blazing sun should be 
called to account by people with weak 
eyes! 




jiiiiii^giii 

HE month of February in all latitudes 
in the United States is uncertain. The 
birth of George Washington in it has not 
raised it in public esteem. In the North, 
it is a month to flee from ; in the South, 
at best it is a waiting month — a month 
of rain and fickle skies. A good deal has 
been done for it. It is the month of St. 
Valentine, it is distinguished by the leap- 
year addition of a day, and ought to be a 
favorite of the gentle sex ; but it re- 
mains a sort of off period in the year. 
Its brevity recommends it, but no one 
would take any notice of it were it 
not for its effect upon character. A 
month of rigid weather is supposed to 
brace up the moral nature, and a month 
of gentleness is supposed to soften the 
asperities of the disposition, but Febru- 
ary contributes to neither of these ends. 
It is neither a tonic nor a soother ; that 



63 



is, in most parts of our inexplicable land. 
We make no complaint of this. It is 
probably well to have a period in the 
year that tests character to the utmost, 
and the person who can enter spring 
through the gate of February a better 
man or woman is likely to adorn society 
the rest of the year. 

February, however, is merely an illus- 
tration of the effect of weather upon the 
disposition. Persons differ in regard to 
their sensitiveness to cloudy, rainy, and 
gloomy days. We recognize this in a 
general way, but the relation of temper 
and disposition to the weather has nev- 
er been scientifically studied. Our ob- 
servation of the influence of climate is 
mostly with regard to physical infirm- 
ities. We know the effect of damp 
weather upon rheumatics, and of the 
east wind upon gouty subjects, but too 
little allowance is made for the influence 
of weather upon the spirits and the con- 
duct of men. We know that a long pe- 
riod of gloomy weather leads to suicides, 
and we observe that long -continued 
clouds and rain beget " crossness " and 



64 



ill-temper, and we are all familiar with 
the universal exhilaration of sunshine 
and clear air upon any company of men 
and women. But the point we wish to 
make is that neither society nor the law 
makes any allowance for the aberrations 
of human nature caused by dull and 
unpleasant weather. And this is very 
singular in this humanitarian age, when 
excuse is found for nearly every moral 
delinquency in heredity or environment, 
that the greatest factor of discontent and 
crookedness, the weather, should be left 
out of consideration altogether. The re- 
lation of crime to the temperature and 
the humidity of the atmosphere is not 
taken into account. Yet crime and 
eccentricity of conduct are very much 
the result of atmospheric conditions, 
since they depend upon the temper and 
the spirit of the community. Many peo- 
ple are habitually blue and down-hearted 
in sour weather ; a long spell of cloudy, 
damp, cold weather depresses everybody, 
lowers hope, tends to melancholy ; and 
people when they are not cheerful are 
more apt to fall into evil ways, as a rule, 



65 



than when they are in a normal state of 
good-humor. And aside from crimes, 
the vexation, the friction, the domestic 
discontent in life, are provoked by bad 
weather. We should like to have some 
statistics as to incompatibility between 
married couples produced by damp and 
raw days, and to know whether divorces 
are more numerous in the States that 
suffer from a fickle climate than in those 
where the climate is more equable. It is 
true that in the Sandwich Islands and in 
Egypt there is greater mental serenity, 
less perturbation of spirit, less worry, 
than in the changeable United States. 
Something of this placidity and resigna- 
tion to the ills inevitable in human life is 
due to an even climate, to the constant 
sun and the dry air. We cannot hope to 
prevent crime and suffering by statistics, 
any more than we have been able to im- 
prove our climate (which is rather worse 
now than before the scientists took it in 
charge) by observations and telegraphic 
reports ; but we can, by careful tabulation 
of the effects of bad weather upon the 
spirits of a community, learn what places 
5 



66 



in the Union are favorable to the pro- 
duction of cheerfulness and an equal 
mind. And we should lift a load of rep- 
robation from some places which now 
have a reputation for surliness and un- 
amiability. We find the people of one 
place hospitable, light-hearted, and agree- 
able ; the people of another place cold, 
and morose, and unpleasant. It would be 
a satisfaction to know that the weather 
is responsible for the difference. Obser- 
vation of this sort would also teach us 
doubtless what places are most condu- 
cive to literary production, what to hap- 
py homes and agreeing wives and hus- 
bands. All our territory is mapped out 
as to its sanitary conditions; why not 
have it colored as to its effect upon the 
spirits and the enjoyment of life ? The 
suggestion opens a vast field of investi- 
gation. 




Msaj 




HERE used to be a notion going round 
that it would be a good thing for peo- 
ple if they were more "self-centred." 
Perhaps there was talk of adding a 
course to the college curriculum, in addi- 
tion to that for training the all-compe- 
tent " journalist," for the self-centring of 
the young. To apply the term to a 
man or woman was considered highly 
complimentary. The advisers of this 
state of mind probably meant to suggest 
a desirable equilibrium and mental bal- 
ance ; but the actual effect of the self- 
centred training is illustrated by a story 
told of Thomas H. Benton, who had been 
described as an egotist by some of the 
newspapers. Meeting Colonel Frank 
Blair one day, he said : " Colonel Blair, 
I see that the newspapers call me an 
egotist. I wish you would tell me frank- 
ly, as a friend, if you think the charge is 



68 



true." " It is a very direct question, Mr. 
Benton," replied Colonel Blair, "but if 
you want my honest opinion, I am com- 
pelled to say that I think there is some 
foundation for the charge." " Well, sir," 
said Mr. Benton, throwing his head back 
and his chest forward, " the difference 
between me and these little fellows is 
that I have an Ego !" Mr. Benton was 
an interesting man, and it is a fair con- 
sideration if a certain amount of egotism 
does not add to the interest of any char- 
acter, but at the same time the self- 
centred conditions shut a person off from 
one of the chief enjoyments to be got 
out of this world, namely, a recognition 
of what is admirable in others in a toler- 
ation of peculiarities. It is odd, almost 
amusing, to note how in this country peo- 
ple of one section apply their local stand- 
ards to the judgment of people in other 
sections, very much as an Englishman 
uses his insular yardstick to measure all M 
the rest of the world. It never seems to " 
occur to people in one locality that the 
manners and speech of those of another 
may be just as admirable as their own, and 



69 



they get a good deal of discomfort out of 
their intercourse with strangers by reason 
of their inability to adapt themselves to 
anyways not their own. It helps greatly 
to make this country interesting that 
nearly every State has its peculiarities, 
and that the inhabitants of different sec- 
tions differ in manner and speech. But 
next to an interesting person, in social 
value, is an agreeable one, and it would add 
vastly to the agreeableness of life if our 
widely spread provinces were not so self- 
centred in their notion that their own way 
is the best, to the degree that they criticise 
any deviation from it as an eccentricity. 
It would be a very nice world in these 
United States if we could all devote our- 
selves to finding out in communities what 
is likable rather than what is opposed to 
our experience; that is. in trying to adapt 
ourselves to others rather than insisting 
that our own standard should measure 
our opinion and our enjoyment of them. 
When the Kentuckian describes a man 
as a "high-toned gentleman" he means 
exactly the same that a Bostonian means 
when he says that a man is a " very good 



7° 



fellow," only the men described have a 
different culture, a different personal fla- 
vor ; and it is fortunate that the Kentuck- 
ian is not like the Bostonian, for each has 
a quality that makes intercourse with him 
pleasant. In the South many people 
think they have said a severe thing when 
they say that a person or manner is thor- 
oughly Yankee ; and many New England- 
ers intend to express a considerable lack 
in what is essential when they say of men 
and women that they are very Southern. 
When the Yankee is produced he may 
turn out a cosmopolitan person of the 
most interesting and agreeable sort ; and 
the Southerner may have traits and pe- 
culiarities, growing out of climate and so- 
cial life unlike the New England, which 
are altogether charming. We talked once 
with a Western man of considerable age 
and experience who had the placid mind 
that is sometimes, and may more and 
more become, the characteristic of those 
who live in flat countries of illimitable 
horizons, who said that New Yorkers, 
State and city, all had an assertive sort 
of smartness that was very disagreeable 



to him. And a lady of New York (a city 
whose dialect the novelists are beginning 
to satirize) was much disturbed by the 
flatness of speech prevailing in Chicago, 
and thought something should be done in 
the public schools to correct the pronunci- 
ation of English. There doubtless should 
be a common standard of distinct, round- 
ed, melodious pronunciation, as there is 
of good breeding, and it is quite as im- 
portant to cultivate the voice in speaking 
as in singing, but the people of the United 
States let themselves be immensely irri- 
tated by local differences and want of tol- 
eration of sectional peculiarities. The 
truth is that the agreeable people are 
pretty evenly distributed over the country, 
and one's enjoyment of them is height- 
ened not only by their differences of man- 
ner, but by the different ways in which 
they look at life, unless he insists upon 
applying everywhere the yardstick of his 
own locality. If the Boston woman sets 
her eye-glasses at a critical angle towards 
the lazsser faiYe flow of social amenity in 
New Orleans, and the New Orleans wom- 
an seeks out only the prim and conven- 



72 



tional in Boston, each may miss the op- 
portunity to supplement her life by some- 
thing wanting and desirable in it, to be 
gained by the exercise of more openness of 
mind and toleration. To some people Yan- 
kee thrift is disagreeable ; to others, South- 
ern shiftlessness is intolerable. To some 
travellers the negro of the South, with his 
tropical nature,his capacity for picturesque 
attitudes,hisabundant trust in Providence, 
is an element of restfulness ; and if the 
chief object of life is happiness, the trav- 
eller may take a useful hint from the race 
whose utmost desire, in a fit climate, 
would be fully satisfied by a shirt and a 
banana-tree. But to another traveller the 
dusky, careless race is a continual affront. 
If a person is born with an " Ego," and 
gets the most enjoyment out of the world 
by trying to make it revolve about himself, 
and cannot make allowances for differ- 
ences, we have nothing to say except to 
express pity for such a self-centred condi- 
tion, which shuts him out of the never- 
failing pleasure there is in entering into 
and understanding with sympathy the al- 
most infinite variety in American life. 




JUVENTUS MUNDI 

OMETIMES the world seems 
very old. It appeared so to Ber- 
nard of Cluny in the twelfth century, when 
he wrote : 

" The world is very evil, 
The times are waxing late." 

There was a general impression among 
the Christians of the first century of our 
era that the end was near. The world 
must have seemed very ancient to the 
Egyptians fifteen hundred years before 
Christ, when the Pyramid of Cheops was 
a relic of antiquity, when almost the 
whole circle of arts, sciences, and litera- 
ture had been run through, when every 
nation within reach had been conquered, 
when woman had been developed into 
one of the most fascinating of beings, and 



74 



even reigned more absolutely than Eliza- 
beth or Victoria has reigned since : it 
was a pretty tired old world at that time. 
One might almost say that the further we 
go back the older and more "played out" 
the world appears, notwithstanding that 
the poets, who were generally pessimists 
of the present, kept harping about the 
youth of the world and the joyous spon- 
taneity of human life in some golden age 
before their time. In fact, the world is 
old in spots — in Memphis and Boston and 
Damascus and Salem and Ephesus. Some 
of these places are venerable in traditions, 
and some of them are actually worn out 
and taking a rest from too much civiliza- 
tion — lying fallow, as the saying is. But 
age is so entirely relative that to many 
persons the landing of the Mayflower 
seems more remote than the voyage of 
Jason, and a Mayflower chest a more an- 
tique piece of furniture than the timbers 
of the Ark, which some believe can still 
be seen on top of Mount Ararat, 

But, speaking generally, the world is 
still young and growing, and a consider- 
able portion of it unfinished. The oldest 



75 



part, indeed, the Laurentian Hills, which 
were first out of water, is still only sparsely- 
settled ; and no one pretends that Florida 
is anything like finished, or that the delta 
of the Mississippi is in anything more 
than the process of formation. Men are 
so young and lively in these days that 
they cannot wait for the slow processes 
of nature, but they fill up and bank up 
places, like Holland, where they can live; 
and they keep on exploring and discov- 
ering incongruous regions, like Alaska, 
where they can go and exercise their ju- 
venile exuberance. 

In many respects the world has been 
growing younger ever since the Christian 
era. A new spirit came into it then which 
makes youth perpetual, a spirit of living 
in others, which got the name of univer- 
sal brotherhood, a spirit that has had a 
good many discouragements and set- 
backs, but which, on the whole, gains 
ground, and generally works in harmony 
with the scientific spirit, breaking down 
the exclusive character of the conquests 
of nature. What used to be the mystery 
and occultism of the few is now general 



76 



knowledge, so that all the playing at oc- 
cultism by conceited people now seems 
jejune and foolish. A little machine called 
the instantaneous photograph takes pict- 
ures as quickly and accurately as the hu- 
man eye does, and besides makes them 
permanent. Instead of fooling credulous 
multitudes with responses from Delphi, 
we have a Congress which can enact 
tariff regulations susceptible of interpre- 
tations enough to satisfy the love of mys- 
tery of the entire nation. Instead of loaf- 
ing round Memnon at sunrise to catch 
some supernatural tones, we talk words 
into a little contrivance which will repeat 
our words and tones to the remotest gen- 
eration of those who shall be curious to 
know whether we said those words in jest 
or earnest. All these mysteries made 
common and diffused certainly increase 
the feeling of the equality of opportunity 
in the world. And day by day such won- 
derful things are discovered and scattered 
aboad that we are warranted in believing 
that we are only on the threshold of turn- 
ing to account the hidden forces of nat- 
ure. There would be great danger of 



n 



human presumption ana conceit in this 
progress if the conceit were not so wide- 
ly diffused, and where we are all con- 
ceited there is no one to whom it will ap- 
pear unpleasant. If there was only one 
person who knew about the telephone he 
would be unbearable. Probably the Eiffel 
Tower would be stricken down as a mon- 
umental presumption, like that of Babel, 
if it had not been raised with the full 
knowledge and consent of all the world. 

This new spirit, with its multiform man- 
ifestations, which came into the world 
nearly nineteen hundred years ago, is 
sometimes called the spirit of Christmas. 
And good reasons can be given for sup- 
posing that it is. At any rate, those na- 
tions that have the most of it are the most 
prosperous, and those people who have 
the most of it are the most agreeable to 
associate with. Know all men by these 
Presents, is an old legal form which has 
come to have a new meaning in this dis- 
pensation. It is by the spirit of brother- 
hood exhibited in giving presents that we 
know the Christmas proper, only we are 
apt to take it in too narrow a way. The 



78 



real spirit of Christmas is the general dif- 
fusion of helpfulness and good-will. If 
somebody were to discover an elixir which 
would make every one truthful, he would 
not, in this age of the world, patent it. 
Indeed, the Patent Office would not let 
him make a corner on virtue as he does 
in wheat ; and it is not respectable any 
more among the real children of Christ- 
mas to make a corner in wheat. The 
world, to be sure, tolerates still a great 
many things that it does not approve of, 
and, on the whole, Christmas, as an amel- 
iorating and good-fellowship institution, 
gains a little year by year. There is still 
one hitch about it, and a bad one just now, 
namely, that many people think they can 
buy its spirit by jerks of liberality, by cost- 
ly gifts. Whereas the fact is that a great 
many of the costliest gifts in this season 
do not count at all. Crumbs from the rich 
man's table don't avail any more to open 
the pearly gates even of popular esteem in 
this world. Let us say, in fine, that a lov- 
ing, sympathetic heart is better than a 
nickel-plated service in this world, which 
is surely growing young and sympathetic. 




turn 
to Age. If the writer has seemed to 
be interested, sometimes to the neglect 
of other topics in the American young 
woman, it was not because she is inter- 
ested in herself, but because she is on 
the way to be one of the most agreeable 
objects in this lovely world. She may 
struggle against it; she may resist it by 
all the legitimate arts of the coquette and 
the chemist ; she may be convinced that 
youth and beauty are inseparable allies ; 
but she would have more patience if she 
reflected that the sunset is often finer 
than the sunrise, commonly finer than 
noon, especially after a stormy day. The 
secret of a beautiful old age is as well 
worth seeking as that of a charming 
young maidenhood. For it is one of the 
compensations for the rest of us, in the 
decay of this mortal life, that women. 



whose mission it is to allure in youth 
and to tinge the beginning of the world 
with romance, also make the end of the 
world more serenely satisfactory and 
beautiful than the outset. And this has 
been done without any amendment to 
the Constitution of the United States ; 
m fact, it is possible that the Sixteenth 
Amendment would rather hinder than 
help this gracious process. We are not 
speaking now of what is called growing 
old gracefully and regretfully, as some- 
thing to be endured, but as a season to 
be desired for itself, at least by those 
whose privilege it is to be ennobled and 
cheered by it. And we are not speaking 
of wicked old women. There is a unique 
fascination — all the novelists recognize 
it — in a wicked old woman; not very 
wicked, buta woman of abundant exper- 
ience, who is perfectly frank and a little 
cynical, and delights in probing human 
nature and flashing her wit on its weak- 
nesses, and who knows as much about life 
as a club man is credited with knowing. 
She may not be a good comrade for the 
young, but she is immensely more fas- 



cinating than a semi-wicked old man. 
Why, we do not know ; that is one of the 
^unfathomable mysteries of womanhood. 
No ; we have in mind quite another sort 
of woman, of which America has so many 
that they are a very noticeable element 
in all cultivated society. And the world 
has nothing more lovely. For there is a 
loveliness or fascination sometimes in 
women between the ages of sixty and 
eighty that is unlike any other— a charm 
that wooes us to regard autumn as beau- 
tiful as spring. 

Perhaps these women were great beau- 
ties in their day, but scarcely so serenely 
beautiful as now when age has refined 
all that was most attractive. Perhaps 
they were plain ; but it does not matter, 
for the subtle influence of spiritualized 
intelligence has the power of transform- 
ing plainness into the beauty of old age. 
Physical beauty is doubtless a great ad- 
vantage, and it is never lost if mind 
shines through it (there is nothing so un- 
lovely as a frivolous old woman fighting 
to keep the skin-deep beauty of her 
youth) ; the eyes, if the life has not 



been one of physical suffering, usually 
retain their power of moving appeal ; 
the lines of the face, if changed, may be 
refined by a certain spirituality ; the 
gray hair gives dignity and softness and 
the charm of contrast ; the low sweet 
voice vibrates to the same note of fem- 
ininity, and the graceful and gracious are 
graceful and gracious still. Even into 
the face and bearing of the plain woman 
whose mind has grown, whose thoughts 
have been pure, whose heart has been 
expanded by good deeds or by constant 
affection, comes a beauty winning and 
satisfactory in the highest degree. 

It is not that the charm of the women 
of whom we speak is mainly this physical 
beaut}?^ ; that is only incidental, as it 
were. The delight in their society has a 
variety of sources. Their interest in 
life is broader than it once was, more! 
sympathetically unselfish ; they have a 
certain philosophical serenity that is not 
inconsistent with great liveliness of mind ; j 
they have got rid of so much nonsense? 
they can afford to be truthful — and' 
how much there is to be learned fromj 



83 



a woman who is truthful ! they have 
a most delicious courage of opinion, 
about men, say, and in politics, and social 
topics, and creeds even. They have very 
little any longer to conceal ; that is, in 
regard to things that should be thought 
about and talked about at all. They are 
not afraid to be gay, and to have enthu- 
siasms. At sixty and eighty a refined 
and well-bred woman is emancipated in 
the best way, and in the enjoyment of 
the full play of the richest qualities of her 
womanhood. She is as far from prudery as 
from the least note of vulgarity. Passion, 
perhaps, is replaced by a great capacity 
for friendliness, and she was never more a 
real woman than in these mellow and re- 
flective days. And how interesting she is 
— adding so mmch knowledge of life to 
the complex interest that inheres in her 
sex! Knowledge of life, yes, and of af- 
fairs ; for it must be said of these ladies 
we have in mind that they keep up with 
the current thought, that they are readers 
of books, even of newspapers — for even 
the newspaper can be helpful and not 
harmful in the alembic of their minds. 



«4 



Let not the purpose of this paper be 
misunderstood. It is not to urge young 
women to become old or to act like old 
women. The independence and frank- 
ness of age might not be becoming to 
them. They must stumble along as best 
they can, alternately attracting and repel- 
ling, until by right of years they join that 
serene company which is altogether beau- 
tiful. There is a natural unfolding and 
maturing to the beauty of old age. The 
mission of woman, about which we are 
pretty weary of hearing, is not accom- 
plished by any means in her years of ver- 
nal bloom and loveliness; she has equal 
power to bless and sweeten life in the 
autumn of her pilgrimage. But here is 
an apologue : The peach, from blossom 
to maturity, is the most attractive of 
fruits. Yet the demands of the market, 
competition, and fashion often cause it 
to be plucked and shipped while green. 
It never matures, though it may take a 
deceptive richness of color ; it decays 
without ripening. And the last end of 
that peach is worse than the first. 








THE ATTRACTION OF 
THE REPULSIVE 

N one of the most charming of 
the many wonderfully picturescjue little 
beaches on the Pacific coast, near Mon- 
terey, is the idlest if not the most disagree- 
able social group in the world. Just off 
theshore, farther than a stone's-throw, lies 
a mass of broken rocks. The surf comes 
leaping and laughing in, sending up, above 
the curving green breakers and crests of 
foam, jets and spirals of water which 
flash like silver fountains in the sunlight. 
These islets of rock are the homes of the 
sea-lion. This loafer of the coast congre- 
gates here by the thousand. Sometimes 
the rocks are quite covered, the smooth 
rounded surface of the larger one present- 
ing the appearance at a distance of a 
knoll dotted with dirty sheep. There is 
generally a select knot of a dozen flcxiting 
about in the still water under the lee of 



86 



the rock, bobbing up their tails and flip- 
pers very much as black drift-wood might 
heave about in the tide. During certain 
parts of the day- members of this commu- 
nity are oflf fishing in deep water ; but 
what they like best to do is to crawl up 
on the rocks and grunt and bellow, or go 
to sleep in the sun. Some of them lie 
half in water, their tails floating and their 
ungainly heads wagging. These uneasy 
ones are always wriggling out or plunging 
in. Some crawl to the tops of the rocks 
and lie like gunny bags stuffed with meal, 
or they repose on the broken surfaces like 
masses of jelly. When they are all at 
home the rocks have not room for them, 
and they crawl on and over each other, 
and lie like piles of undressed pork. In 
the water they are black, but when they 
are dry in the sun the skin becomes a dirty 
light brown. Many of them are huge fel- 
lows, with a body as big as an ox. In the 
water they are repulsively graceful ; on 
the rocks they are as ungainly as boneless 
cows, or hogs that have lost their shape 
in prosperity. Summer and winter (and 
it is almost always summer on this coast) 



87 



these beasts, which are well fitted neither 
for land nor water, spend their time in 
absolute indolence, except when they are 
compelled to cruise around in the deep 
water for food. They are of no use to 
anybody, either for their skin or their 
flesh. Nothing could be more thoroughly 
disgusting and uncanny than they are, 
and yet nothing more fascinating. One 
can watch them — the irresponsible, form- 
less lumps of intelligent flesh— for hours 
without tiring. I scarcely know what the 
fascination is. A small seal playing by 
himself near the shore, floating on and 
diving under the breakers, is not so very 
disagreeable, especially if he comes so 
near that you can see his pathetic eyes ; 
but these brutes in this perpetual summer 
resort are disgustingly attractive. Nearly 
everything about them, including their 
voice, is repulsive. Perhaps it is the ab- 
solute idleness of the community that 
makes it so interesting. To fish, to swim, 
to snooze on the rocks, that is all, for ever 
and ever. No past, no future. A society 
that lives for the laziest sort of pleasure. 
If they were rich, what more could they 



have ? Is not this the ideal of a watering- 
place life ? 

The spectacle of this happy community 
ought to teach us humility and charity in 
judgment. Perhaps the philosophy of its 
attractiveness lies deeper than its dolce 
fa?' 7iie}ite existence. We may never have 
considered the attraction for us of the 
disagreeable, the positive fascination of 
the uncommonly ugly. The repulsive fas- 
cination of the loathly serpent or dragon 
for women can hardly be explained on 
theological grounds. Some cranks have 
maintained that the theory of gravitation 
alone does not explain the universe, that 
repulsion is as necessary as attraction in 
our economy. This may apply to society. 
We are all charmed with the luxuriance 
of a semi-tropical landscape, so violently 
charmed that we become in time tired of 
its overpowering bloom and color. But 
what is the charm of the wide, treeless 
desert, the leagues of sand and burnt-up 
chaparral, the distant savage, fantastic 
mountains, the dry desolation as of a 
world burnt out ? It is not contrast alto- 
gether. For this illimitable waste has its 



own charm ; and again and again, when 
we come to a world of vegetation, where 
the vision is shut in by beauty, we shall 
have an irrepressible longing for these 
wind-swept plains as wide as the sea, with 
the ashy and pink horizons. We shall 
long to be weary of it all again — its vast 
nakedness, its shimmering heat, its cold, 
star-studded nights. It seems paradoxi- 
cal, but it is probably true, that a society 
composed altogether of agreeable people 
would become a terrible bore. We are a 
"kittle " lot, and hard to please for long. 
We know how it is in the matter of cli- 
mate. Why is it that the masses of the 
human race live in the most disagreeable 
climates to be found on the globe, subject 
to extremes of heat and cold, sudden and 
unprovoked changes, frosts, fogs, mala- 
rias .'' In such regions they congregate, 
and seem to like the vicissitudes, to like 
the excitement of the struggle with the 
weather and the patent medicines to keep 
alive. They hate the agreeable monotony 
of one genial day following another the 
year through. They praise this monot- 
ony, all literature is full of it ; people al- 



go 



rays say they are in search of the equable 
climate ; but they continue to live, never- 
theless, or try to live, in the least equable ; 
and if they can find one spot more dis- 
agreeable than another there they build a 
big city. If man could make his ideal 
climate he would probably be dissatisfied 
with it in a month. The effect of climate 
upon disposition and upon manners needs 
to be considered some day ; but we are 
now only trying to understand the attract- 
iveness of the disagreeable. There must 
be some reason for it ; and that would ex- 
plain a social phenomenon, why there are 
so many unattractive people, and why the 
attractive readers of these essays could 
not get on without them. 

The writer of this once travelled for 
days with an intelligent curmudgeon, who 
made himself at all points as prickly as 
the porcupine. There was no getting on 
with him. And yet when he dropped out 
of the party he was sorely missed. He 
was more attractively repulsive than the 
sea-lion. It was such a luxury to hate 
him. He was such a counter-irritant, such 
a stimulant ; such a flavor he gave to life. 



91 



We are always on the lookout for the odd, 
the eccentric, the whimsical. We pretend 
that we like the orderly, the beautiful, the 
pleasant. We can find them anywhere — 
the little bits of scenery that please the 
eye, the pleasant households, the group 
of delightful people. Why travel, then ? 
We want the abnormal, the strong, the 
ugly, the unusual at least. We wish to 
be startled and stirred up and repelled. 
And we ought to be more thankful than 
we are that there are so many desolate 
and wearisome and fantastic places, and 
so many tiresome and unattractive peo- 
ple in this lovely world. 




GIVING AS A LUXURY 



There must be something very good 
in human nature, or people would not 
experience so much pleasure in giving; 
there must be something very bad in 
human nature, or more people would try 
the experiment of giving. Those who do 
try it become enamored of it, and get their 
chief pleasure in life out of it ; and so 
evident is this that there is some basis for 
the idea that it is ignorance rather than 
badness which keeps so many people from 
being generous. Of course it may be- 
come a sort of dissipation, or more than 



93 



that, a devastation, as many men who 
have what are called "good wives " have 
reason to know, in the gradual disappear- 
ance of their wardrobe if they chance to 
lay aside any of it temporarily. The 
amount that a good woman can give 
away is only measured by her oppor- 
tunity. Her mind becomes so trained 
in the mystery of this pleasure that she 
experiences no thrill of delight in giving 
away only the things her husband does 
not want. Her office in life is to teach 
him the joy of self-sacrifice. She and all 
other habitual and irreclaimable givers 
soon find out that there is next to no 
pleasure in a gift unless it involves some 
self-denial. 

Let one consider seriously whether he 
ever gets as much satisfaction out of a 
gift received as out of one given. It 
pleases him for the moment, and if it is 
useful, for a long time ; he turns it over, 
and admires it; he may value it as a 
token of affection, and it flatters his self- 
esteem that he is the object of it. But it 
is a transient feeling compared with that 
he has when he has made a gift. That 



94 



substantially ministers to his self-esteemj 
He follows the gift ; he dwells upon th( 
delight of the receiver ; his imagination 
plays about it ; it will never wear out or 
become stale ; having parted v/ith it, it is 
for him a lasting possession. It is an 
investment as lasting as that in the debt 
of England. Like a good deed, it grows, 
and is continually satisfactory. It is 
something to think of when he first 
wakes in the morning — a time when most 
people are badly put to it for want of 
something pleasant to think of. This 
fact about giving is so incontestably true 
that it is a wonder that enlightened peo- 
ple do not more freely indulge in giving 
for their own comfort. It is, above all 
else, amazing that so many imagine they 
are going to get any satisfaction out of 
what they leave by will. They may be 
in a state where they will enjoy it, if the 
will is not fought over; but it is shocking 
how little gratitude there is accorded to 
a departed giver compared to a living 
giver. He couldn't take the property 
with him, it is said ; he was obliged to 
leave it to somebody. By this thought 



95 



his generosity is always reduced to a 
minimum. He may build a monument 
to himself in some institution, but we do 
not know enough of the world to which 
he has gone to know whether a tiny 
monument on this earth is any satisfac- 
tion to a person who is free of the uni- 
verse. Whereas every giving or deed of 
real humanity done while he was living 
would have entered into his character, 
and would be of lasting service to him — 
that is, in any future which we can con- 
ceive. 

Of course we are not confining our re- 
marks to what are called Christmas gifts 
— commercially so called — nor would we 
undertake to estimate the pleasure there 
is in either receiving or giving these. The 
shrewd manufacturers of the world have 
taken notice of the periodic generosity 
of the race, and ingeniously produce ar- 
ticles to serve it, that is, to anticipate the 
taste and to thwart all individuality or 
spontaneity in it. There is, in short, 
what is called a "line of holiday goods," 
fitting, it may be supposed, the periodic 
line of charity. When a person receives 



96 



some of these things in the blessed sea- 
son of such, he is apt to be puzzled. He 
wants to know what they are for, what he 
is to do with them. If there are no 
"directions" on the articles, his gratitude 
is somewhat tempered. He has seen 
these nondescripts of ingenuity and ex- 
pense in the shop windows, but he never 
expected to come into personal relations 
to them. He is puzzled, and he cannot 
escape the unpleasant feeling that com- 
merce has put its profit-making fingers 
into Christmas. Such a lot of things ■{ 
seem to be manufactured on purpose that 
people may perform a duty that is ex- 
pected of them in the holidays. The 
house is full of these impossible things ; 
they occupy the mantel-pieces, they stand 
about on the tottering little tables, they 
are ingenious, they are made for wants 
yet undiscovered, they tarnish, they break, 
they will not " work," and pretty soon 
they look "second-hand." Yet there 
must be more satisfaction in giving these 
articles than in receiving them, and may- 
be a spice of malice — not that of course, 
for in the holidays nearly every gift ex- 



97 



presses at least kindly remembrance — but 
if you give them you do not have to live 
with them. But consider how full the 
world is of holiday goods — costly goods 
too — that are of no earthly use, and are 
not even artistic, and how short life is, and 
how many people actually need books and 
other indispensable articles, and how 
starved are many fine drawing - rooms, 
not for holiday goods, but for objects of 
beauty. 

Christmas stands for much, and for 
more and more in a world that is break- 
ing down its barriers of race and religious 
intolerance, and one of its chief offices 
has been supposed to be the teaching of 
men the pleasure there is in getting rid 
of some of their possessions for the bene- 
fit of others. But this frittering away a 
good instinct and tendency in conven- 
tional giving of manufactures made to 
suit an artificial condition is hardly in 
the line of developing the spirit that 
shares the last crust or gives to the thirsty 
companion in the desert the first pull at 
the canteen. Of course Christmas feeling 
is the life of trade and all that, and we will 

7 



be the last to discourage any sort of giv- 
ing, for one can scarcely disencumber 
himself of anything in his passage through 
this world and not be benefited ; but the 
hint may not be thrown away that one 
will personally get more satisfaction out 
of his periodic or continual benevolence 
if he gives during his life the things which 
he wants and other people need, and 
reserves for a fine show in his will a col- 
lected but not selected mass of holiday 
goods. 




CLIMATE AND HAPPINESS 

The idea of the relation of climate to 
happiness is modern. It is probably born 
of the telegraph and of the possibility of 
rapid travel, and it is more disturbing to 
serenity of mind than any other. Provi- 
dence had so ordered it that if we sat 
still in almost any region of the globe 
except the tropics, we would have, in 
course of the year, almost all the kinds 
of climate that exist. The ancient soci- 
eties did not trouble themselves about 



^ 



the matter; they froze or thawed, were 
hot or cold, as it pleased the gods. They 
did not think of fleeing from winter any 
more than from the summer solstice, and 
consequently they enjoyed a certain con- 
tentment of mind that is absent from 
modern life. We are more intelligent, 
and therefore more discontented and un- 
happy. We are always trying to escape 
winter when we are not trying to escape 
summer. We are half the time m traitsitu, 
flying hither and thither, craving that 
exact adaptation of the weather to our 
whimsical bodies promised only to the 
saints who seek a " better country." There 
are places, to be sure, where nature is in 
a sort of equilibrium, but usually those 
are places where we can neither make 
money nor spend it to our satisfaction. 
They lack either any stimulus to ambition 
or a historic association, and we soon find 
that the mind insists upon being cared 
for quite as much as the body. 

How many wanderers in the past winter 
left comfortable homes in the United 
States to seek a mild climate ! Did they 
find it in the sleet and bone-piercing cold 



1 



4 



I03 



of Paris, or anywhere in France, where 
the wolves were forced to come into the 
villages in the hope of picking up a ten- 
der child ? If they travelled farther, were 
the railway carriages anything but re- 
frigerators tempered by cans of cooling 
water? Was there a place in Europe, 
from Spain to Greece, where the Amer- 
ican could once be warm — really warm 
without efifort — in or out of doors ? Was 
it any better in divine Florence than on 
the chill Riviera ? Northern Italy was 
blanketed with snow, the Apennines were 
white, and through the clean streets of the 
beautiful town a raw wind searched every 
nook and corner, penetrating through the 
thickest of English wraps, and harder to 
endure than ingratitude, while a frosty 
mist enveloped all. The traveller forgot 
to bring with him the contented mind of 
the Italian. Could he go about in a long 
cloak and a slouch hat, curl up in door- 
ways out of the blast, and be content in a 
feeling of his own picturesqueness ? Could 
he sit all day on the stone pavement and 
hold out his chilblained hand for soldi ? 
Could he even deceive himself, in a pala- 



104 



tial apartment with a frescoed ceiling, by 
an appearance of warmth in two sticks 
ignited by a pine cone set in an aperture 
in one end of the vast room, and giving 
out scarcely heat enough to drive the 
swallows from the chimney ? One must 
be born to this sort of thing in order to 
enjoy it. He needs the poetic tempera- 
ment which can feel in January the breath 
of June. The pampered American is not 
adapted to this kind of pleasure. He is 
very crude, not to say barbarous, yet in 
many of his tastes, but he has reached 
one of the desirable things in civilization, 
and that is a thorough appreciation of 
physical comfort. He has had the ingenu- 
ity to protect himself in his own climate, 
but when he travels he is at the mercy of 
customs and traditions in which the idea 
of physical comfort is still rudimentary. 
He cannot warm himself before a group 
of statuary, or extract heat from a canvas 
by Raphael, nor keep his teeth from chat- 
tering by the exquisite view from the 
Boboli Gardens. The cold American is 
insensible to art, and shivers in the pres- 
ence of the warmest historical associa- 



I05 

tions. It is doubtful if there is a spot in 
Europe where he can be ordinarily warm 
in winter. The world, indeed, does not 
care whether he is warm or not, but it is 
a matter of great importance to him. As 
he wanders from palace to palace — and he 
cannot escape the impression that nothing 
is good enough for him except a palace — 
he cannot think of any cottage in any ham- 
let in America that is not more comfort- 
able in winter than any palace he can find. 
And so he is driven on in cold and weary 
stretches of travel to dwell among the 
French in Algeria, or with the Jews in 
Tunis, or the Moslems in Cairo. He 
longs for warmth as the Crusader longed 
for Jerusalem, but not short of Africa 
shall he find it. The glacial period is 
coming back on Europe. 

The citizens of the great republic have 
a reputation for inordinate self-apprecia- 
tion, but we are thinking that they under- 
value many of the advantages their in- 
genuity has won. It is admitted that 
they are restless, and must always be 
seeking something that they have not at 
home. But aside from their ability to be 



io6 



warm in any part of their own country at 
any time of the year, where else can they 
travel three thousand miles on a stretch 
in a well-heated — too much heated — ^car, A 
without change of car, without revision ■ 
of tickets, without encountering a custom- 
house, without the necessity of stepping 
out-doors either for food or drink, for a 
library, for a bath — for any item, in short, 
that goes to the comfort of a civilized 
being ? And yet we are always prating 
of the superior civilization of Europe. 
Nay, more, the traveller steps into a car 
— which is as comfortable as a house — in 
Boston, and alights from it only in the 
City of Mexico. In what other part of 
the world can that achievement in com- 
fort and convenience be approached.? 

But this is not all as to climate and 
comfort. We have climates of all sorts 
within easy reach, and in quantity, both 
good and bad, enough to export — more 
in fact, than we need of all sorts. If heat 
is all we want, there are only three or 
four days between the zero of Maine 
and the 80° of Florida. If New England 
is inhospitable and New York freezing, it 



I07 



is only a matter of four days to the sun 
and the exhilarating air of New Mexico 
and Arizona, and only five to the oranges 
and roses of that semi-tropical kingdom 
by the sea, Southern California. And if 
this does not content us, a day or two 
more lands us, without sea -sickness, in 
the land of the Aztecs, where we can live 
in the temperate or the tropic zone, eat 
strange fruits, and be reminded of Egypt 
and Spain and Italy, and see all the colors 
that the ingenuity of man has been able 
to give his skin. Fruits and flowers and 
sun in the winter-time, a climate to lounge 
and be happy in — all this is within easy 
reach, with the minimum of disturbance 
to our daily habits. We started out, when 
we turned our backs on the Old World, 
with the declaration that all men are free, 
and entitled to life, liberty, and the pur- 
suit of an agreeable climate. We have 
yet to learn, it seems, that we can indulge 
in that pursuit best on our own continent. 
There is no winter climate elsewhere to 
compare with that found in our extreme 
Southwest or in Mexico, and the sooner 
we put this fact into poetry and litera- 



io8 



ture, and begin to make a tradition of it, 
the better will it be for our peace of mind 
and for our children. And if the con^il 
tinent does not satisfy us, there lie the 
West Indies within a few hours' sail, with 
all the luxuriance and geniality of the 
tropics. We are only half emancipated 
yet. We are still apt to see the world 
through the imagination of England, 
whose literature we adopted, or of Ger- 
many. To these bleak lands Italy was a 
paradise, and was so sung by poets who 
had no conception of a winter without 
frost. We have a winter climate of an- 
other sort from any in Europe ; we have 
easy and comfortable access to it. The 
only thing we need to do now is to cor- 
rect our imagination, which has been led 
astray. Our poets can at least do this 
for us by the help of a quasi-international 
copyright. 



THE NEW FEMININE RESERVE 

In times past there have been expressed 
desire and fear that there should be an 
American aristocracy, and the materials 
for its formation have been a good deal 
canvassed. In a political point of view- 
it is of course impossible, but it has been 
hoped by many, and feared by more, that 
a social state might be created conform- 
ing somewhat to the social order in Eu- 
ropean countries. The problem has been 
exceedingly difficult. An aristocracy of 
derived rank and inherited privilege be- 
ing out of the question, and an aris- 
tocracy of talent never having succeeded 
anywhere, because enlightenment of mind 
tends to liberalism and democracy, there 
was only left the experiment of an aris- 
tocracy of wealth. This does very well 
for a time, but it tends always to disin- 
tegration, and it is impossible to keep it 
exclusive. It was found, to use the slang 



of the dry-goods shops, that it would not 
wash, for there were liable to crowd into 
it at any moment those who had in fact 
washed for a living. An aristocracy has 
a slim tenure that cannot protect itself 
from this sort of intrusion. We have to 
contrive, therefore, another basis for a 
class (to use an un-American expression), 
in a sort of culture or training, which can 
he perpetual, and which cannot be or- 
dered for money, like a ball costume or a 
livery. 

Perhaps the " American Girl " may be 
the agency to bring this about. This 
charming product of the Western world 
has come into great prominence of late 
years in literature and in foreign life, and 
has attained a notoriety flattering or 
otherwise to the national pride. No in- 
stitution has been better known or more 
marked on the Continent and in Eng- 
land, not excepting the tramway and the 
Pullman cars. Her enterprise, her daring, 
her freedom from conventionality, have 
been the theme of the novelists and the 
horror of the dowagers having marriage- 
able daughters. Considered as "stock," 



"3 



the American Girl has been quoted high, 
and the alliances that she has formed with 
families impecunious but noble have given 
her eclat as belonging to a new and con- 
quering race in the world. But the Amer- 
ican Girl has not simply a slender figure 
and a fine eye and a ready tongue, she is 
not simply an engaging and companion- 
able person, she has excellent common- 
sense, tact, and adaptability. She has at 
length seen in her varied European ex- 
perience that it is more profitable to have 
social good form according to local stand- 
ards than a reputation for dash and brill- 
iancy. Consequently the American Girl 
of a decade ago has effaced herself. She 
is no longer the dazzling courageous fig- 
ure. In England, in France, in Germany, 
in Italy, she takes, as one may say, the 
color of the land. She has retired behind 
her mother. She who formerly marched 
in the van of the family procession, lead- 
ing them — including the panting mother 
— a whimsical dance, is now the timid 
and retiring girl, needing the protection 
of a chaperon on every occasion. The 
satirist will find no more abroad the Amer- 



114 



ican Girl of the old type whom he con- 
tinues to describe. The knowing and 
fascinating creature has changed her 
tactics altogether. And the change has 
reacted on American society. The mother 
has come once more to the front, and even 
if she is obliged to own to forty-five years 
to the census-taker, she has again the 
position and the privileges of the bloom- 
ing woman of thirty. Her daughters 
walk meekly and with downcast (if still 
expectant) eyes, and wait for a sign. 

That this change is the deliberate work 
of the American Girl, no one who knows 
her grace and talent will deny. In foreign 
travel and residence she has been quick 
to learn her lesson. Dazzled at first by 
her own capacity and the opportunities 
of the foreign field, she took the situation 
by storm. But she found too often that 
she had a barren conquest, and that the 
social traditions survived her success and 
became a life-long annoyance ; that is to 
say, it was possible to subdue foreign 
men, but the foreign women were impreg 
nable in their social order. The Amer- 
ican Girl abroad is now, therefore, wit 



II 



"5 

rare exceptions, as carefully chaperoned 
and secluded as her foreign sisters. 

It is not necessary to lay too much 
stress upon this phase of American life 
abroad, but the careful observer must 
notice its reflex action at home. The 
American freedom and unconventionality 
in the intercourse of the young of both 
sexes, which has been so much com- 
mented on as characteristic of American 
life, may not disappear, but that small 
section which calls itself " society " may 
attain a sort of aristocratic distinction by 
the adoption of this foreign convention- 
ality. It is sufficient now to note this 
tendency, and to claim the credit of it for 
the wise and intelligent American Girl. 
It would be a pity if it were to become 
nationally universal, for then it would 
not be the aristocratic distinction of a 
few, and the American woman who longs 
for some sort of caste would be driven to 
some other device. 

It is impossible to tell yet what form 
this feminine reserve and retirement will 
take. It is not at all likely to go so far 
as the Oriental seclusion of women. The 



ii6 



American Girl would never even seem- 
ingly give up her right of initiative. If 
she is to stay in the background and pre- 
tend to surrender her choice to her par- 
ents, and with it all the delights of a 
matrimonial campaign, she will still main- 
tain a position of observation. If she 
seems to be influenced at present by the 
French and Italian examples, we may be 
sure that she is too intelligent and too 
fond of freedom to long tolerate any 
system of chaperonage that she cannot 
control. She will find a way to modify 
the traditional conventionalities so as not 
to fetter her own free spirit. It may be 
her misson to show the world a social 
order free from the forward independence! 
and smartness of which she has been ac- 
cused, and yet relieved of the dull stiff- 
ness of the older forms. It is enough] 
now to notice that a change is going on,| 
due to the effect of foreign society upon 
American women, and to express the 
patriotic belief that whatever forms of 
etiquette she may bow to, the American 
Girl will still be on earth the last and 
best gift of God to man. 



REPOSE IN ACTIVITY 

What we want is repose. We take in- 
finite trouble and go to the ends of the 
world to get it. That is what makes us 
all so restless. If we could only find a 
spot where we could sit down, content to 
let the world go by, away from the Sun- 
day newspapers and the chronicles of an 
uneasy society, we think we should be 
happy. Perhaps such a place is Corona- 
do Beach — that semitropical flower-gar- 
den by the sea. Perhaps another is the 
Timeo Terrace at Taormina. There, with- 
out moving, one has the most exquisite 
sea and shore far below him, so far that 
he has the feeling of domination without 
effort ; the most picturesque crags and 
castle peaks; he has all classic legend un- 
der his eye without the trouble of reading, 
and mediaeval romance as well; ruins 
from the time of Theocritus to Freeman, 
with no responsibility of describing them ; 



ii8 



m 



and one of the loveliest and most majes- 
tic of snow mountains, never twice the 
same in light and shade, entirely revealed 
and satisfactory from base to summit, 
with no self or otherwise imposed duty 
of climbing it. Here are most of the ele- 
ments of peace and calm spirit. And the 
town itself is quite dead, utterly ex- 
hausted after a turbulent struggle of 
twenty -five hundred years, its poor in- 
habitants living along only from habit 
The only new things in it — the two cara- 
vansaries of the traveller — are a hotel and 
a cemetery. One might end his day 
here in serene retrospection, and more 
cheaply than in other places of fewer at- 
tractions, for it is all Past and no Future. 
Probably, therefore, it would not suit the 
American, whose imagination does not 
work so easily backward as forward, and 
who prefers to build his own nest rather 
than settle in anybody else's rookery. 

Perhaps the American deceives himself 
when he says he wants repose ; what he 
wants is perpetual activity and change ; 
his peace of mind is postponed until he 
can get it in his own way. It is in feeling 



I 



that he is a part of growth and not of de- 
cay. Foreigners are fond of writing essays 
upon American traits and characteristics. 
They touch mostly on surface indica- 
tions. What really distinguishes the 
American from all others — for all peoples 
like more or less to roam, and the English 
of all others are globe-trotters — is not so 
much his restlessness as his entire accord 
with the spirit of "go-ahead," the result 
of his absolute breaking with the Past. 
He can repose only in the midst of in- 
tense activity. He can sit down quietly 
in a town that is growing rapidly ; but if 
it stands still, he is impelled to move his 
rocking-chair to one more lively. He 
wants the world to move, and to move 
unencumbered ; and Europe seems to him 
to carry too much baggage. The Amer- 
ican is simply the most modern of men, 
one who has thrown away the impedi- 
menta of tradition. The world never saw 
such a spectacle before, so vast a territory 
informed with one uniform spirit of en- 
ergy and progress, and people tumbling 
into it from all the world, eager for the 
fair field and free opportunity. The Amer- 



ican delights in it ; in Europe he misses 
the swing and " go " of the new Hfe. 

This large explanation may not account 
for the summer restlessness that over- 
takes nearly everybody. We are the an- 
nual victims of the delusion that there 
exists somewhere the ideal spot where 
manners are simple, and milk is pure, and 
lodging is cheap, where we shall fall at 
once into content. We never do. For 
content consists not in having all we 
want, nor in not wanting everything, nor 
in being unable to get what we want, but 
in not wanting that we can get. In our 
summer flittings we carry our wants with 
us to places where they cannot be grati- 
fied. A few people have discovered that 
repose can be had at home, but this dis- 
covery is too unfashionable to find favor; 
we have no rest except in moving about. 

Looked at superficially, it seems curi- 
ous that the American is, as a rule, the 
only person who does not emigrate. The 
fact is that he can go nowhere else where 
life is so uneasy, and where, consequently, 
he would have so little of his sOrt of re 
pose. To put him in another country 



123 



would be like putting a nineteenth-cen- 
tury man back into the eighteenth cen- 
tury. The American wants to be at the 
head of the procession (as he fancies he 
is), where he can hear the band play, and 
be the first to see the fireworks of the 
new era. He thinks that he occupies an 
advanced station of observation, from 
which his telescope can sweep the hori- 
zon for anything new. And with some 
reason he thinks so ; for not seldom he 
takes up a foreign idea and tires of it be- 
fore it is current elsewhere. More than 
one great writer of England had his first 
popular recognition in America. Even 
this season the Saturday Rezn'ew is strug- 
gling with Ibsen, while Boston, having 
had that disease, has probably gone on to 
some other fad. 

Far be it from us to praise the Ameri- 
can for his lack of repose ; it is enough 
to attempt to account for it. But from 
the social, or rather society, point of view, 
the subject has a disquieting aspect. If 
the American young man and young 
woman get it into their heads that repose, 
especially of manner, is the correct thing, 



124 



they will go in for it in a way to astonish 
the world. The late cultivation of idiocy 
by the American dude was unique. He 
carried it to an extreme impossible to the 
youth of any nation less " gifted." And 
if the American girl goes in seriously for 
" repose," she will be able to give odds to 
any modern languidity or to any ancient 
marble. If what is wanted in society is 
cold hauteur and languid superciliousness 
or lofty immobility, we are confident that 
with a little practice she can sit stiller, 
and look more impassive, and move with 
less motion, than any other created wom- 
an. We have that confidence in her abil- 
ity and adaptability. It is a question 
whether it is worth while to do this ; to 
sacrifice the vivacity and charm native to 
her, and the natural impulsiveness and 
generous gift of herself which belong to 
a new race in a new land, which is walk- 
ing always towards the sunrise. 

In fine, although so much is said of the 
American lack of repose, is it not best for 
the American to be content to be himself, 
and let the critics adapt themselves or 
not, as they choose, to a new phenom- 



125 



enon ? Let us stick a philosophic name 
to it, and call it repose in activity. 

The American might take the candid 
advice given by one friend to another, 
who complained that it was so difficult to 
get into the right frame of mind. " The 
best thing you can do," he said, " is to 
frame your mind and hang it up." 




WOMEN— IDEAL AND REAL 

We have not by any means got to the 
bottom of Realism. It matters very little 
what the novelists and critics say about 
it — what it is and what it is not ; the atti- 
tude of society towards it is the important 
thing. Even if the critic could prove 
that nature and art are the same thing, 
and that the fiction which is Real is only 
a copy of nature, or if another should 
prove that Reality is only to be found in 
the Ideal, little would be gained. Liter- 
ature is well enough in its place, art is an 
agreeable pastime, and it is right that 
society should take up either in seasons 
when lawn-tennis and polo are impracti- 
cable and afternoon teas become flavor- 
less ; but the question that society is or 
should be interested in is whether the 
young woman of the future — upon whose 
formation all our social hopes depend — 
is going to shape herself by a Realistic 




or an Ideal 
standard. It 
should be 
said in paren- 
thesis that 
the young 
woman of the 
passing peri- 
od has inclined towards Realism in man- 
ner and speech, if not in dress, affecting 
a sort of frank return to the easy- 
going ways of nature itself, even to the 
adoption of the language of the stock 
exchange, the race-course, and the clubs 
— an offering of herself on the altar of 
good-fellowship, with the view, no doubt, 
of making life more agreeable to the 



128 



opposite sex, forgetting the fact that men 
fall in love always, or used to in the days 
when they could afford that luxury, with 
an ideal woman, or if not with an ideal 
woman, with one whom they idealize. 
And at this same time the world is full of 
doubts and questionings as to whether 
marriage is a failure. Have these ques- 
tionings anything to do with the increas- 
ing Realism of women, and a consequent 
loss of ideals ? 

Of course the reader sees that the 
difficulty in considering this subject is 
whether woman is to be estimated as a 
work of nature or of art. And here 
comes in the everlasting question of what 
is the highest beauty, and what is most to 
be desired. The Greek artists, it seems to 
be well established, never used a model, 
as our artists almost invariably do, in 
their plastic and pictorial creations. The 
antique Greek statues, or their copies, 
which give us the highest conceptions of 
feminine charm and manly beauty, were 
made after no woman, or man born of 
woman, but were creations of the ideal 
raised to the highest conception by the 



129 



passionate love and long study of nature, 
but never by faithful copying of it. The 
Romans copied the Greek art. The 
Greek in his best days created the ideal 
figure, which we love to accept as nature. 
Generation after generation the Greek 
learned to draw and learned to observe, 
until he was able to transmute his knowl- 
edge into the forms of grace and beauty 
which satisfy us as nature at her best ; 
just as the novelist trains all his powers 
by the observation of life until he is able 
to transmute all the raw material into a 
creation of fiction which satisfies us. We 
may be sure that if the Greek artist had 
employed the service of models in his 
studio, his art would have been merely a 
passing phase in human history. But as 
it is, the world has ever since been in love 
with his ideal woman, and still believes in 
her possibility. 

Now the young woman of to-day should 
not be deceived into the notion of a pref- 
erable Realistic development because the 
novelist of to-day gets her to sit to him 
as his model. This may be no certain in- 
dication that she is either good art or 

9 



I30 



good nature. Indeed she may be quite 
drifting away from the ideal that a woman 
ought to aim at if we are to have a society 
that is not always tending into a realistic 
vulgarity and commonplace. It is per- 
fectly true that a woman is her own ex- 
cuse for being, and in a way she is doing 
enough for the world by simply being a 
woman. It is difficult to rouse her to 
any sense of her duty as a standard of 
aspiration. And it is difficult to explain 
exactly what it is that she is to do. If 
she asks if she is expected to be a model 
woman, the reply must be that the world 
does not much hanker after what is called 
the "model woman." It seems to be 
more a matter of tendency than anything 
else. Is she sagging towards Realism or 
rising towards Idealism? Is she content 
to be the woman that some of the nov- 
elists, and some of the painters also, say 
she is, or would she prefer to approach 
that ideal which all the world loves ? It 
is a question of standards. 

It is natural that in these days, when 
the approved gospel is that it is better to^ 
be dead than not to be Real, society 



131 



should try to approach nature by the 
way of the materiahstically ignoble, and 
even go such a pace of Realism as liter- 
ature finds it difficult to keep up with; 
but it is doubtful if the young woman 
will get around to any desirable state of 
nature by this route. We may not be 
able to explain why servile imitation of 
nature degrades art and degrades woman, 
but both deteriorate without an ideal so 
high that there is no earthly model for it. 

Would you like to marry, perhaps, a 
Greek statue ? says the justly contempt- 
uous critic. 

Not at all, at least not a Roman copy 
of one. But it would be better to marry 
a woman who would rather be like a 
Greek statue than like some of these 
figures, without even an idea for clothing, 
which are lying about on green banks in 
our spring exhibitions. 



THE ART OF IDLENESS 

Idleness seems to be the last accom- 
plishment of civilization. To be idle grace- 
fully and contentedly and picturesquely is 
an art. It is one in which the Americans, 
who do so many things well, do not excel. 
They have made the excuse that they have 
not time, or, if they have leisure, that their 
temperament and nervous organization do 
not permit it. This excuse will pass for a 
while, for we are a new people, and prob- 
ably we are more highly and sensitively 
organized than any other nation— at least 
the physiologists say so ; but the excuse 
seems more and more inadequate as we 
accumulate wealth, and consequently have 
leisure. We shall not criticise the Amer- 
ican colonies in Paris and Rome and Flor- 
ence, and in other Continental places where 
they congregate. They know whether 
they are restless or contented, and what 
examples they set to the peoples who get 



I 



135 



their ideas of republican simplicity and 
virtue from the Americans who sojourn 
among them. They know whether with 
all their leisure they get placidity of mind 
and the real rest which the older nations 
have learned to enjoy. It may not be the 
most desirable thing for a human being 
to be idle, but if he will be, he should be 
so in a creditable manner, and with some 
enjoyment to himself. It is no slander to 
say that we in America have not yet found 
out the secret of this. Perhaps we shall 
not until our energies are spent and we 
are in a state of decay. At present we 
put as much energy into our pleasure as 
into our work, for it is inbred in us that 
laziness is a sin. This is the Puritan 
idea, and it must be said for it that in our 
experience virtue and idleness are not 
commonly companions. But this does 
not go to the bottom of the matter. 

The Italians are industrious ; they are 
compelled to be in order to pay their taxes 
for the army and navy and get macaroni 
enough to live on. But see what a long 
civilization has done for them. They 
have the manner of laziness, they have 



136 



the air of leisure, they have worn off the 
angular corners of existence, and uncon- 
sciously their life is picturesque and en- 
joyable. Those among them who have 
money take their pleasure simply and 
with the least expense of physical energy. 
Those who have not money do the same 
thing. This basis of existence is calm 
and unexaggerated ; life is reckoned by 
centimes, not by dollars. What an ideal 
place is Venice ! It is not only the most 
picturesque city in the world, rich in all 
that art can invent to please the eye, but 
how calm it is ! The vivacity which en- 
tertains the traveller is all on the surface. 
The nobleman in his palace — if there be 
any palace that is not turned into a 
hotel, or a magazine of curiosities, or a 
municipal office — can live on a diet that 
would make an American workman strike, 
simply because he has learned to float 
through life ; and the laborer is equally 
happy on little because he has learned to 
wait without much labor. The gliding, 
easy motion of the gondola expresses the 
whole situation ; and the gondolier who 
with consummate skill urges his dreamy 



137 



bark amid the throng and in the tortuous 
canals for an hour or two, and then sleeps 
in the sun, is a type of that rest in labor 
which we do not attain. What happiness 
there is in a dish of polenta, or of a few 
fried fish, in a cup of cofifee, and in one 
of those apologies for cigars which the 
government furnishes, dear at a cent — 
the cigar with a straw in it, as if it were a 
julep, which it needs five minutes to 
ignite, and then will furnish occupation 
for a whole evening ! Is it a hard lot, 
that of the fishermen and the mariners of 
the Adriatic ? The lights are burning all 
night long in a cafe on the Riva del Schia- 
voni, and the sailors and idlers of the 
shore sit there jabbering and singing and 
trying their voices in lusty hallooing till 
the morning light begins to make the 
lagoon opalescent. The traveller who 
lodges near cannot sleep, but no more 
can the sailors, who steal away in the 
dawn, wafted by painted sails. In the 
heat of the day, when the fish will not 
bite, comes the siesta. Why should the 
royal night be wasted in slumber? The 
shore of the Riva, the Grand Canal, the 



138 



islands, gleam with twinkling lamps ; the 
dark boats glide along with a star in the 
prow, bearing youth and beauty and sin and 
ugliness, all alike softened by the shadows; 
the electric lights from the shores and the 
huge steamers shoot gleams on towers 
and fagades ; the moon wades among the 
fleecy clouds ; here and there a barge 
with colored globes of light carries a 
band of singing men and women and 
players on the mandolin and the fiddle, 
and from every side the songs of Italy, 
pathetic in their worn gayety, float to the 
entranced ears of those who lean from 
balconies, or lounge in gondolas and listen 
with hearts made a little heavy and wist- 
ful with so much beauty. 

Can any one float in such scenes and 
be so contentedly idle anywhere in our 
happy land ? Have we learned yet the 
simple art of easy enjoyment ? Can we 
buy it with money quickly, or is it a grace 
that comes only with long civilization ? 
Italy, for instance, is full of accumulated 
wealth, of art, even of ostentation and 
display, and the new generation probably 
have lost the power to conceive, if not 



139 



the skill to execute, the great works which 
excite our admiration. Nothing can be 
much more meretricious than its modern 
art, when anything is produced that is 
not an exact copy of something created 
when there was genius there. But in 
one respect the Italians have entered into 
the fruits of the ages of trial and of fail- 
ure, and that is the capacity of being idle 
with much money or with none, and get- 
ting day by day their pay for the bother 
of living in this world. It seems a diffi- 
cult lesson for us to learn in country or 
city. Alas ! when we have learned it shall 
we not want to emigrate, as so many of the 
Italians do ? Some philosophers say that 
men were not created to be happy. Per- 
haps they were not intended to be idle. 





S there any such thing as conversa- 
tion? It is a dehcate subject to touch, 
because many people understand conver- 
sation to be talk ; not the exchange of 
ideas, but of words ; and we would not 
like to say anything to increase the 
flow of the latter. We read of times 
and salons in which real conversation 
existed, held by men and women. Are 
they altogether in the past ? We believe 
that men do sometimes converse. Do 
women ever? Perhaps so. In those 
hours sacred to the relaxation of undress 
and the back hair, in the upper pene- 
tralia of the household, where two or 
three or six are gathered together on 
and about the cushioned frame in- 
tended for repose, do they converse, 
or indulge in that sort of chat from 
which not one idea is carried away ? 
No one reports, fortunately, and we 



141 



do not know. But do all the wom- 
en like this method of spending hour 
after hour, day after day — indeed, a life- 
time ? Is it invigorating, even restful ? 
Think of the talk this past summer, the 
rivers and oceans of it, on piazzas and 
galleries in the warm evenings or the 
fresher mornings, in private houses, on 
hotel verandas, in the shade of thou- 
sands of cottages by the sea and in the 
hills ! As you recall it, what was it all 
about ? Was the mind in a vapid con- 
dition after an evening of it ? And there 
is so much to read, and so much to think 
about, and the world is so interesting, if 
you do think about it, and nearly every 
person has some peculiarity of mind that 
would be worth study if you could only 
get at it ! It is really, we repeat, such an 
interesting world, and most people get 
so little out of it. Now there is the con- 
versation of hens, when the hens are busy 
and not self-conscious ; there is some- 
thing fascinating about it, because the 
imagination may invest it with a recon- 
dite and spicy meaning; but the com- 
mon talk of people ! We infer sometimes 



142 



that the hens are not saying anything, 
because they do not read, and conse- 
quently their minds are empty. And 
perhaps we are right. As to conversa- 
tion, there is no use in sending the 
bucket into the well when the well is 
dry — it only makes a rattling of windlass 
and chain. 

We do not wish to be understood to be 
an enemy of the light traffic of human 
speech. Deliver us from the didactic 
and the everlastingly improving style 
of thing ! Conversation, in order to 
be good, and intellectually inspiring, 
and spiritually restful, need not al- 
ways be serious. It must be alert and 
intelligent, and mean more by its sug- 
gestions and allusions than is said. 
There is the light touch-and-go play 
about topics more or less profound that 
is as agreeable as heat-lightning in a sul- 
try evening, Why may not a person ex- 
press the whims and vagaries of a lambent 
mind (if he can get a lambent mind) 
without being hauled up short for it, and 
plunged into a heated dispute ? In the 
freedom of real conversation the mind 



^43 

throws out half-thoughts, paradoxes, for 
which a man is not to be held strictly 
responsible to the very roots of his being, 
and which need to be caught up and 
played with in the same tentative spirit. 
The dispute and the hot argument are 
usually the bane of conversation and the 
death of originality. We like to express 
a notion, a fancy, without being called 
upon to defend it, then and there, in all 
its possible consequences, as if it were to 
be an article in a creed or a plank in a 
platform. Must we be always either 
vapid or serious ? 

We have been obliged to take notice 
of the extraordinary tendency of Amer- 
ican women to cultivation, to the im- 
provement of the mind, by means of 
reading, clubs, and other intellectual ex- 
ercises, and to acknowledge that they are 
leaving the men behind ; that is, the men 
not in the so-called professions. Is this 
intellectualization beginning to show in 
the conversation of women when they 
are together, say in the hours of relax- 
ation in the penetralia spoken of, or 
in general society ? Is there less talk 



144 



about the fashion of dress, and the 
ness or cheapness of materials, and about 
servants, and the ways of the inchoate 
citizen called the baby, and the infinitely 
little details of the private life of other 
people ? Is it true that if a group of men 
are talking, say about politics, or ro- 
bust business, or literature, and they 
are joined by women (whose company 
is always welcome), the conversation is 
pretty sure to take a lower mental plane, 
to become more personal, more frivolous, 
accommodating itself to quite a different 
range ? Do the well-read, thoughtful 
women, however beautiful and brilliant 
and capable of the gayest persiflage, prefer 
to talk with men, to listen to the conver- 
sation of men, rather than to converse 
with or listen to their own sex ? If this 
is true, why is it ? Women, as a rule, in 
" society " at any rate, have more leisure 
than men. In the facilities and felicities 
of speech they commonly excel men, and 
usually they have more of that vivacious 
dramatic power which is called " setting 
out a thing to the life." With all these 
advantages, and all the world open to 



145 



them in newspapers and in books, they 
ought to be the leaders and stimulators 
of the best conversation. With them it 
should never drop down to the too-com- 
mon flatness and banality. Women have 
made this world one of the most beau- 
tiful places of residence to be conceived. 
They might make it one of the most 
interesting- 



THE TALL GIRL 

It is the' fashion for girls to be tall. 
This is much more than saying that tall 
girls are the fashion. It means not only 
that the tall girl has come in, but that 
girls are tall, and are becoming tall, be- 
cause it is the fashion, and because there 
is a demand for that sort of girl. There 
is no hint of stoutness, indeed the willowy 
pattern is preferred, but neither is lean- 
ness suggested ; the women of the period 
have got hold of the poet's idea, " tall 
and most divinely fair," and are living up 
to it. Perhaps this change in fashion is 
more noticeable in England and on the 
Continent than in America, but that may 
be because there is less room for change 
in America, our girls being always of an 
aspiring turn. Very marked the phenom- 
enon is in England , on the street, at any 
concert or reception, the number of tall 
girls is so large as to occasion remark, 



149 



especially among the young girls just 
coming into the conspicuousness of wom- 
anhood. The tendency of the new gen- 
eration is towards unusual height and 
gracious slimness. The situation would 
be embarrassing to thousands of men who 
have been too busy to think about growing 
upward, were it not for the fact that the 
tall girl, who must be looked up to, is al- 
most invariably benignant, and bears her 
height with a sweet timidity that disarms 
fear. Besides, the tall girl has now come 
on in such force that confidence is infused 
into the growing army, and there is a sense 
of support in this survival of the tallest 
that is very encouraging to the young. 

Many theories have been put forward 
to account for this phenomenon. It is 
known that delicate plants in dark places 
struggle up towards the light in a frail 
slenderness, and it is said that in England, 
which seems to have increasing cloud- 
iness, and in the capital more and more 
months of deeper darkness and blackness, 
it is natural that the British girl should 
grow towards the light. But this is a 
fanciful view of the case, for it cannot be 



ISO 



proved that English men have propor- 
tionally increased their stature. The Eng- 
lish man has always seemed big to the 
Continental peoples, partly because ob- 
jects generally take on gigantic dimen- 
sions when seen through a fog. Another 
theory, which has much more to com- 
mend it, is that the increased height of 
women is due to the aesthetic movement, 
which has now spent its force, but has 
left certain results, especially in the change 
of the taste in colors. The woman of the 
aesthetic artist was nearly always tall, usu- 
ally willowy, not to say undulating and 
serpentine. These forms of feminine love- 
liness and commanding height have been 
for many years before the eyes of the 
women of England in paintings and draw- 
ings, and it is unavoidable that this pat- 
tern should not have its effect upon the 
new and plastic generation. Never has 
there been another generation so open to 
new ideas ; and if the ideal of woman- 
hood held up was that of length and 
gracious slenderness, it would be very 
odd if women should not aspire to it. 
We know very well the influence that the 



IS' 



heroines of the novelists have had from 
time to time upon the women of a given 
period. The heroine of Scott was, no 
doubt, once common in society— the del- 
icate creature who promptly fainted on 
the reminiscence of the scent of a rose, 
but could stand any amount of dragging 
by the hair through underground pas- 
sages, and midnight rides on lonely moors 
behind mailed and black-mantled knights, 
and a run or two of hair-removing typhoid 
fever, and come out at the end of the story 
as fresh as a daisy. She could not be found 
now, so changed are the requirements of 
fiction. We may assume, too, that the full- 
blown aesthetic girl of that recent period 
— the girl all soul and faded harmonies — 
would be hard to find, but the fascination 
of the height and slenderness of that girl 
remains something more than a tradition, 
and is, no doubt, to some extent copied by 
the maiden just coming into her kingdom. 
Those who would belittle this matter 
may say that the appearance of which we 
speak is due largely to the fashion of dress 
— the long unbroken lines which add to 
the height and encourage the appearance 



152 



of slenderness. But this argument gives 
away the case. Why do women wear the 
present fascinating gowns, in which the 
lithe figure is suggested in all its womanly 
dignity? In order that they may appear 
to be tall. That is to say, because it is 
the fashion to be tall; women born in the 
mode are tall, and those caught in a heredi- 
tary shortness endeavor to conform to the 
stature of the come and coming woman. 

There is another theory, that must be 
put forward with some hesitation, for the 
so-called emancipation of woman is a del- 
icate subject to deal with, for while all 
the sex doubtless feel the impulse of the 
new time, there are still many who indig- 
nantly reject the implication in the strug- 
gle for the rights of women. To say, 
therefore, that women are becoming tall 
as a part of their outfit for taking the 
place of men in this world would be to 
many an affront, so that this theory can 
only be suggested. Yet probably physi- 
ology would bear us out in saying that 
the truly emancipated woman, taking at 
last the place in affairs which men have 
flown in the face of Providence by deny- 



IS3 



ing her, would be likely to expand phys- 
ically as well as mentally, and that as she 
is beginning to look down upon man in- 
tellectually, she is likely to have a corre- 
sponding physical standard. 

Seriously, however, none of these the- 
ories are altogether satisfactory, and we 
are inclined to seek, as is best in all cases, 
the simplest explanation. Women are 
tall and becoming tall simply because it 
is the fashion, and that statement never 
needs nor is capable of any explanation. 
A while ago it was the fashion to h^ petite 
and arch ; it is now the fashion to be tall 
and gracious, and nothing more can be 
said about it. Of course the reader, who 
is usually inclined to find the facetious 
side of any grave topic, has already 
thought of the application of the self- 
denying hymn, that man wants but little 
here below, and wants that little long ; 
but this maybe only a passing sigh of the 
period. We are far from expressing any 
preference for tall women over short wom- 
en. There are creative moods of the 
fancy when each seems the better. We 
can only chronicle, but never create. 




THE 

DEADLY 

ilARY 



II 



ANY people regard the keeping of 
a diary as a meritorious occupation. The 
young are urged to take up this cross ; it 
is supposed to benefit girls especially. 
Whether women should do it is to some 
minds not an open question, although 
there is on record the case of the French- 
man who tried to shoot himself when he 
heard that his wife was keeping a diary. 
This intention of suicide may have arisen 
from the fear that his wife was keeping a 
record of his own peccadilloes rather than 
of her own thoughts and emotions. Or 
it may have been from the fear that she 
was putting down those little conjugal 
remarks which the husband always dis- 
likes to have thrown up to him, and which 
a woman can usually quote accurately, 
it may be for years, it may be forever, 
without the help of a diary. So we can 
appreciate without approving the terror 



155 



of the Frenchman at living on and on in 
the same house with a growing diary. 
For it is not simply that this little book 
of judgment is there in black and white, 
but that the maker of it is increasing her 
power of minute observation and analyt- 
ic expression. In discussing the ques- 
tion whether a woman should keep a 
diary it is understood that it is not a 
mere memorandum of events and en- 
gagements, such as both men and women 
of business and affairs necessarily keep, 
but the daily record which sets down 
feelings, emotions, and impressions, and 
criticises people and records opinions. 
But this is a question that applies to 
men as well as to women. 

It has been assumed that the diary 
serves two good purposes : it is a disci- 
plinary exercise for the keeper of it, and 
perhaps a moral guide ; and it has great 
historical value. As to the first, it may 
be helpful to order, method, discipline, 
and it may be an indulgence of spleen, 
whims, and unwholesome criticism and 
conceit. The habit of saying right out 
what you think of everybody is not a 



156 



good one, and the record of such opin- 
ions and impressions, while it is not so 
mischievous to the pubUc as talking may 
be, is harmful to the recorder. And 
when we come to the historical value of 
the diary, we confess to a growing sus- 
picion of it. It is such a deadly weapon 
when it comes to light after the passage 
of years. It has an authority which the 
spoken words of its keeper never had. It 
is ex parte, and it cannot be cross-exam- 
ined. The supposition is that being con- 
temporaneous with the events spoken of, 
it must be true, and that it is an honest 
record. Now, as a matter of fact, we 
doubt if people are any more honest as to 
themselves or others in a diary than out 
of it ; and rumors, reported facts, and 
impressions set down daily in the heat 
and haste of the prejudicial hour are 
about as likely to be wrong as right. 
Two diaries of the same events rarely 
agree. And in turning over an old diary 
we never know what to allow for the 
personal equation. The diary is greatly 
relied on by the writers of history, but it 
is doubtful if there is any such liar in 



157 



the world, even when the keeper of it is 
honest. It is certain to be partisan, and 
more liable to be misinformed than a 
newspaper, which exercises some care in 
view of immediate publicity. The writer 
happens to know of two diaries which 
record, on the testimony of eye-witnesses, 
the circumstances of the last hours of 
Garfield, and they differ utterly in es- 
sential particulars. One of these may 
turn up fifty years from now, and 
be accepted as true. An infinite amount 
of gossip goes into diaries about men 
and women that would not stand the 
test of a moment's contemporary pub- 
lication. But by-and-by it may all be 
used to smirch or brighten unjustly 
some one's character. Suppose a man 
in the Army of the Potomac had re- 
corded daily all his opinions of men 
and events. Reading it over now, with 
more light and a juster knowledge of 
character and of measures, is it not prob- 
able that he would find it a tissue of 
misconceptions ? Few things are act- 
ually what they seem to-day ; they are 
colored both by misapprehensions and by 



158 



moods, rf a man writes a letter or makes 
report of an occurrence for immediate 
publication, subject to universal criticism, 
there is some restraint on him. In his 
private letter, or diary especially, he is 
apt to set down what comes into his 
head at the moment, often without much 
effort at verification. 

We have been led to this disquisition 
into the fundamental nature of this pri- 
vate record by the question put to us, 
whether it is a good plan for a woman to 
keep a diary. Speaking generally, the 
diary has become a sort of fetich, the au- 
thority of which ought to be overthrown. 
It is fearful to think how our characters 
are probably being lied away by innumer- 
able pen scratches in secret repositories, 
which may some day come to light as 
unimpeachable witnesses. The reader 
knows that he is not the sort of man 
which the diarist jotted him down to be 
in a single interview. The diary may be 
a good thing for self -education, if the 
keeper could insure its destruction. The 
mental habit of diarizing may have some 
value, even when it sets undue impor- 



159 



tance upon trifles. We confess that, never 
having seen a woman's private diary (ex- 
cept those that have been published), we 
do not share the popular impression as to 
their tenuity implied in the question put 
to us. Taking it for granted that they 
are full of noble thoughts and beautiful 
imaginings, we doubt whether the time 
spent on them could not be better em- 
ployed in acquiring knowledge or taking 
exercise. For the diary forgotten and 
left to the next generation may be as 
dangerous as dynamite. 



THE WHISTLING GIRL 



The wisdom of our ancestors packed 
away in proverbial sayings may always be 
a little suspected. We have a vague re- 
spect for a popular proverb, as embodying 
folk-experience, and expressing not the 
wit of one, but the common thought of a 
race. We accept the saying unquestion- 
ing, as a sort of inspiration out of the air, 
true because nobody has challenged it for 
ages, and probably for the same reason 
that we try to see the new moon over 
our left shoulder. Very likely the musty 
saying was the product of the average 
ignorance of an unenlightened time, and 
ought not to have the respect of a scien- 
tific and travelled people. In fact it will 
be found that a large proportion of the 
proverbial sayings which we glibly use are 
fallacies based on a very limited expe- 
rience of the world, and probably were 
set afloat by the idiocy or prejudice of 



Ifl- 







163 



one person. To examine one of them 
is enough for our present purpose. 

" Whistling girls and crowing hens 
Always come to some bad ends." 

It would be interesting to know the 
origin of this proverb, because it is still 
much relied on as evincing a deep knowl- 
edge of human nature, and as an argument 
against change, that is to say, in this case, 
against progress. It would seem to have 
been made by a man, conservative, per- 
haps malevolent, who had no apprecia- 
tion of a hen, and a conservatively poor 
opinion of woman. His idea was to keep 
woman in her place — a good idea when 
not carried too far — but he did not know 
what her place is, and he wanted to put a 
sort of restraint upon her emancipation 
by coupling her with an emancipated hen. 
He therefore launched this shaft of ridi- 
cule, and got it to pass as an arrow of wis- 
dom shot out of a popular experience in 
remote ages. 

In the first place, it is not true, and prob- 
ably never was true even when hens were 
at their lowest. We doubt its Sanscrit 



164 



antiquity. It is perhaps of Puritan origin, 
and rhymed in New England. It is false 
as to the hen. A crowing hen was always 
an object of interest and distinction ; she 
was pointed out to visitors ; the owner 
was proud of her accomplishment, and 
he was naturally likely to preserve her 
life, especially if she could lay. A hen 
that can lay and crow is a rara avis. 
And it should be parenthetically said here 
that the hen who can crow and cannot 
lay is not a good example for woman. 
The crowing hen was of more value than 
the silent hen, provided she crowed with 
discretion; and she was likely to be a 
favorite, and not at all to come to some 
bad end. Except, indeed, where the prov- 
erb tended to work its own fulfilment. 
And this is the regrettable side of most 
proverbs of an ill - nature, that they do 
help to work the evil they predict. Some 
foolish boy, who had heard this proverb, 
and was sent out to the hen-coop in the 
evening to slay for the Thanksgiving 
feast, thought he was a justifiable little 
providence in wringing the neck of the 
crowing hen, because it was proper (ac- 



i65 



cording to the saying) that she should 
come to some bad end. And as years 
went on, and that kind of boy increased 
and got to be a man, it became a fixed 
idea to kill the amusing, interesting, 
spirited, emancipated hen, and naturally 
the barn-yard became tamer and tamer, 
the production of crowing hens was dis- 
couraged (the wise old hens laid no eggs 
with a crow in them, according to the 
well-known principle of heredity), and the 
man who had in his youth exterminated 
the hen of progress actually went about 
quoting that false couplet as an argument 
against the higher education of woman. 

As a matter of fact, also, the couplet is 
not true about woman ; whether it ought 
to be true is an ethical question that will 
not be considered here. The whistlinsf 
girl does not commonly come to a bad 
end. Quite as often as any other girl 
she learns to whistle a cradle song, low 
and sweet and charming, to the young 
voter in the cradle. She is a girl of 
spirit, of independence of character, of 
dash and flavor ; and as to lips, why, you 
must have some sort of presentable lips to 



i66 



whistle ; thin ones will not. The whistling 
girl does not come to a bad end at all (if 
marriage is still considered a good occu- 
pation), except a cloud may be thrown 
upon her exuberant young life by this 
rascally proverb. Even if she walks the 
lonely road of life, she has this advantage, 
that she can whistle to keep her courage 
up. But in a larger sense, one that this 
practical age can understand, it is not 
true that the whistling girl comes to a 
bad end. Whistling pays. It has brought 
her money; it has blown her name about 
the listening world. Scarcely has a non- 
whistling woman been more famous. She 
has set aside the adage. She has done so 
much towards the emancipation of her 
sex from, the prejudice created by an ill- 
natured proverb which never had root in 
fact. 

But has the whistling woman come to 
stay.? Is it well for woman to whistle.? 
Are the majority of women likely to be 
whistlers ? These are serious questions, 
not to be taken up in a light manner at 
the end of a grave paper. Will woman 
ever learn to throw a stone ? There it is. 



i67 



The future is inscrutable. We only know- 
that whereas they did not w^histle with 
approval, now they do ; the prejudice of 
generations gradually melts away. And 
woman's destiny is not linked with that 
of the hen, nor to be controlled by a 
proverb — perhaps not by anything. 




BORN OLD AND RICH 



We have been remiss in not proposing 
a remedy for our present social and eco- 
nomic condition. Looking backward, we 
see this. The scheme may not be prac- 
tical, any more than the Utopian plans 
that have been put forward, but it is rad- 
ical and interesting, and requires, as the 
other schemes do, a total change in hu- 
man nature (which may be a good thing 
to bring about), and a general recasting 
of the conditions of life. This is and 
should be no objection to a socialistic 
scheme. Surface measures will not avail. 
The suggestion for a minor alleviation of 
inequality, which seems to have been 
acted on, namely, that women should pro- 
pose, has not had the desired effect if it 
is true, as reported, that the eligible young 
men are taking to the woods. The work- 
ings of such a measure are as impossible 
to predict in advance as the operation of 



171 



the McKinley tariff. It might be well to 
legislate that people should be born equal 
(including equal privileges of the sexes), 
but the practical difficulty is to keep them 
equal. Life is wrong somehow. Some 
are born rich and some are born poor, 
and this inequality makes misery; and 
then some lose their possessions, which 
others get hold of, and that makes more 
misery. We can put our fingers on the 
two great evils of life as it now is : the 
first is poverty ; and the second is infirm- 
ity, which is the accompaniment of in- 
creasing years. Poverty, which is only 
the unequal distribution of things desired, 
makes strife, and is the opportunity of 
lawyers ; and infirmity is the excuse for 
doctors. Think what the world would be 
without lawyers and doctors ! 

We are all born young, and most of us 
are born poor. Youth is delightful, but 
we are always getting away from it.. How 
different it would be if we were always 
going towards it ! Poverty is unpleasant, 
and the great struggle of life is to get rid 
of it ; but it is the common fortune that 
in proportion as wealth is attained the 



172 



capacity of enjo5ang it departs. It seems, 
therefore, that our Hfe is wrong end first. 
The remedy suggested is that men should 
be born rich and old. Instead of the ne- 
cessity of making a fortune, which is of 
less and less value as death approaches, 
we should have only the privilege of 
spending it, and it would have its natural 
end in the cradle, in which we should be 
rocked into eternal sleep. Born old, one 
would, of course, inherit experience, so 
that wealth could be made to contribute A: 
to happiness, and each day, instead of ■ 
lessening the natural powers and increas- 
ing infirmities, would bring new vigor 
and capacity of enjoyment. It would be 
going from winter to autumn, from au- 
tumn to summer, from summer to spring. 
The joy of a life without care as to ways 
and means, and every morning refitted 
with the pulsations of increasing youth, 
it is almost impossible to imagine. 

Of course this scheme has difficulties 
on the face of it. The allotting of the 
measure of wealth would not be difficult 
to the socialists, because they would in- 
sist that every person should be born 



173 



with an equal amount of property. What 
this should be would depend upon the 
length of life ; and how should this be ar- 
rived at? The insurance companies might 
agree, but no one else would admit that 
he belongs in the average. Naturally the 
Biblical limit of threescore and ten sug- 
gests itself ; but human nature is very 
queer. With the plain fact before them 
that the average life of rhan is less than 
thirty-four years, few would be willing, if 
the choice were offered, to compromise 
on seventy. Everybody has a hope of 
going beyond that, so that if seventy were 
proposed as the year at birth, there would 
no doubt be as much dissatisfaction as 
there is at the present loose arrange- 
ment. Science would step in, and de- 
monstrate that there is no reason why, 
with proper care of the system, it should 
not run a hundred years. It is improb- 
able, then, that the majority could be in- 
duced to vote for the limit of seventy 
years, or to exchange the exciting uncer- 
tainty of adding a little to the period 
which must be accompanied by the 
Aveight of the grasshopper, for the cer- 



C74 



tainty of only seventy years in this much- 
abused world. 

But suppose a limit to be agreed on, 
and the rich old man and the rich old 
woman (never now too old to marry) to 
start on their career towards youth and 
poverty. The imagination kindles at the 
idea. The money would hold out just as 
long as life lasted, and though it would 
all be going downhill, as it were, what a 
charming descent, without struggle, and 
with only the lessening infirmities that 
belong to decreasing age ! There would 
be no second childhood, only the inno- 
cence and elasticity of the first. It all 
seems very fair, but we must not forget 
that this is a mortal world, and that it is 
liable to various accidents. Who, for in- 
stance, could be sure that he would grow 
voung gracefully ? There would be the 
constant need of fighting the hot tempers 
and impulses of youth, growing more and 
more instead of less and less unreason- 
able. And then, how many would reach 
youth ? More than half, of course, would 
be cut off in their prime, and be more 
and more liable to go as they fell back 



175 



into the pitfalls and errors of childhood. 
Would people grow young together even 
as harmoniously as they grow old togeth- 
er? It would be a pretty sight, that of 
the few who descended into the cradle 
together, but this inversion of life would 
not escape the woes of mortality. And 
there are other considerations, unless it 
should turn out that a universal tax on 
land should absolutely change human 
nature. There are some who would be 
as idle and spendthrift going towards 
youth as they now are going away from 
it, and perhaps more, so that half the 
race on coming to immaturity would be 
in child asylums. And then others who 
would be stingy and greedy and avari- 
cious, and not properly spend their al- 
lotted fortune. And we should have the 
anomaly, which is so distasteful to the re- 
former now, of rich babies. A few babies 
inordinately rich, and the rest in asylums. 
Still, the plan has more to recommend 
it than most others for removing proverty 
and equalizing conditions. We should 
all start rich, and the dying off of those 
who would never attain youth would am- 



176 



ply provide fortunes for those born old. 
Crime would be less also ; for while there 
would, doubtless, be some old sinners, the 
criminal class, which is very largely under 
thirty, would be much smaller than it is 
now. Juvenile depravity would propor- 
tionally disappear, as not more people 
would reach nonage than now reach over- 
age. And the great advantage of the 
scheme, one that would indeed transform 
the world, is that women would always 
be growing younger. 



THE ''OLD SOLDIER" 

The "old soldier" is beginning to out- 
line himself upon the public mind as a 
distant character in American life. Lit- 
erature has not yet got hold of him, and 
perhaps his evolution is not far enough 
advanced to make him as serviceable as 
the soldier of the Republic and the Em- 
pire, the relic of the Old Guard, was to 
Hugo and Balzac, the trooper of Italy and 
Egj^pt, the maimed hero of Borodino and 
Waterloo, who expected again the com- 
ing of the Little Corporal. It takes time 
to develop a character, and to throw the 
glamour of romance over what may be 
essentially commonplace. A quarter of a 
century has not sufficed to separate the 
great body of the surviving volunteers in 
the war for the Union from the body of 
American citizens, notwithstanding the 
organization of the Grand Army of the 
Republic, the encampments, the annual 



178 



reunions, and the distinction of pensions, 
and the segregation in Soldiers' Homes. 
The "old soldier" slowly eliminates trim- 
self from the mass, and begins to take, 
and to make us take, a romantic view of 
his career. There was one event in his 
life, and his personality in it looms larger 
and larger as he recedes from it. The 
heroic sacrifice of it does not diminish, as 
it should not, in our estimation, and he 
helps us to keep glowing a lively sense of 
it. The past centres about him and his 
great achievement, and the whole of life 
is seen in the light of it. In his retreat 
in the Home, and in his wandering from 
one Home to another, he ruminates on 
it, he talks of it ; he separates himself 
from the rest of mankind by a broad dis^ 
tinction, and his point of view of life be- 
comes as original as it is interesting. In 
the Homes the battered veterans speak 
mainly of one thing ; and in the monot- 
ony of their spent lives develop whim- 
seys and rights and wrongs, patriotic ar- 
dors and criticisms on their singular fate, 
which are original in their character in 
our society. It is in human nature to 



179 



like rest but not restriction, bounty but 
not charity, and the tired heroes of the 
war grow restless, though every physical 
want is supplied. They have a fancy that 
they would-like to see again the homes of 
their youth, the farm-house in the hills, 
the cottage in the river valley, the lone- 
some house on the wide prairie, the street 
that ran down to the wharf where the 
fishing-smacks lay, to see again the friends 
whom they left there, and perhaps to take 
up the occupations that were laid down 
when they seized the musket in 1861. 
Alas ! it is not their home any more ; the 
friends are no longer there ; and what 
chance is there of occupation for a man 
who is now feeble in body and who has 
the habit of campaigning? This genera- 
tion has passed on to other things. It 
looks upon the hero as an illustration in 
the story of the war, which it reads like 
history. The veteran starts out from the 
shelter of the Home. One evening, to- 
wards sunset, the comfortable citizen, 
taking the mild air on his piazza, sees an 
interesting figure approach. Its dress is 
half military, half that of the wanderer 



^8o . ^_ 

whose attention to his personal appear- 
ance is only spasmodic. The veteran 
gives the military salute, he holds him- 
self erect, almost too erect, and his speech 
is voluble and florid. It is a delightful 
evening ; it seems to be a good growing- 
time ; the country looks prosperous. He 
is sorry to be any trouble or interruption, 
but the fact is — yes, he is on his way to 
his old home in Vermont ; it seems like 
he would like to taste some home cook- 
ing again, and sit in the old orchard, and 
perhaps lay his bones, what is left of 
them, in the burying-ground on the hill. 
He pulls out his well-worn papers as he 
talks ; there is the honorable discharge, 
the permit of the Home, and the pension. 
Yes, Uncle Sam is generous ; it is the 
most generous government God ever 
made, and he would willingly fight for it 
again. Thirty dollars a month, that is | 
what he has ; he is not a beggar ; he 
wants for nothing. But the pension is 
not payable till the end of the month. 
It is entirely his own obligation, his own 
fault ; he can fight, but he cannot lie, and 
nobody is to blame but himself ; but last 



night he fell in with some old comrades 
at Southdown, and, well, you know how 
it is. He had plenty of money when he 
left the Home, and he is not asking for 
anything now, but if he had a few dollars 
for his railroad fare to 
the next city, he could 
walk the rest of the way. 
Wounded.? Well, if I 
stood out here against 
the light you could just 
see through me, that's 
all. Bullets.? It's no 
use to try to get 'em 
out. But, sir, I'm not 
complaining. It had to 
be done; the country 
had to be saved ; and 
I'd do it again if it were 
necessary. Had any hot 
fights.? Sir, I was at Get- 
tysburg ! The veteran straightens up, 
and his eyes flash as if he saw again that 
sanguinary field. Off goes the citizen's 
hat. Children, come out here ; here is 
one of the soldiers of Gettysburg ! Yes, 
sir ; and this knee — you see I can't bend 




l82 



it much — got stiffened at Chickamauga; 
and this scratch here in the neck was 
from a bullet at Gaines Mill ; and this 
here, sir — thumping his chest — you notice 
I don't dare to cough much — after the 
explosion of a shell at Petersburg I found 
myself lying on my back, and the only 
one of my squad who was not killed out- 
right. Was it the imagination of the 
citizen or of the soldier that gave the 
impression that the hero had been in the 
forefront of every important action of 
the war ? Well, it doesn't matter much. 
The citizen was sitting there under his 
own vine, the comfortable citizen of a 
free republic, because of the wounds in 
this cheerful and imaginative old wan- 
derer. There, that is enough, sir, quite 
enough. I am no beggar. I thought per- 
haps you had heard of the Ninth Ver- 
mont. Woods is my name — Sergeant 
Woods. I trust sometime, sir, I shall be 
in a position to return the compliment. 
Good-evening, sir; God bless your honor! 
and accept the blessing of an old soldier. 
And the dear old hero goes down the 
darkening avenue, not so steady of bear- 



i83 



ing as when he withstood the charge of 
Pickett on Cemetery Hill, and with the 
independence of the American citizen who 
deserves well of his country, makes his 
way to the nearest hospitable tavern. 



THE ISLAND OF BIMINI 

!0 the northward of 
Hispaniola hes the 
island of Bimini. 
It may not be one 
of the spice is- 
lands, but it grows 
the best ginger to 
be found in the 
world. In it is a 
fair city, and be- 
side the city a lofty 
mountain, at the 
foot of which is a noble spring called the 
FoJis Juventutis. This fountain has a 
sweet savor, as of all manner of spicery, 
and every hour of the day the water 
changes its savor and its smell. Who- 
ever drinks of this well will be healed of 
whatever malady he has, and will seem 
always young. It is not reported that 
women and men who drink of this fount- 







i8s 



ain will be always young, but that they 
will seem so, and probably to themselves, 
which simply means, in our modern ac- 
curacy of language, that they will feel 
young. This island has never been found. 
Many voyages have been made in search 
of it in ships and in the imagination, and 
Liars have said they have landed on it 
and drunk of the water, bat they never 
could guide any one else thither. In the 
credulous centuries when these voyages 
were made, other islands were discovered, 
and a continent much more important 
than Bimini; but these discoveries were 
a disappointment, because they were not 
what the adventurers wanted. They did 
not understand that they had found a 
new land in which the world should renew 
its youth and begin a new career. In 
time the quest was given up, and men re- 
garded it as one of the delusions which 
came to an end in the sixteenth century. 
In our day no one has tried to reach 
Bimini except Heine. Our scientific pe- 
riod has a proper contempt for all such 
superstitions. We now know that the 
Fans Juveiihitis is in every man, and that 



r86 



ir actual juvenility cannot be renewec , 
the advance of age can be arrested and 
the waste of tissues be prevented, and an 
uncalculated length of earthly existence 
be secured, by the injection of some sort 
of fluid into the S3-stem. The right fluid 
has not yet been discovered by science, 
but millions of people thought that it had 
the other day, and now confidently ex- 



^^"^V^f ~i t 



pect it. This credulity has a scientific 
basis, and has no relation to the old absurd 
belief in Bimini. We thank goodness 
that we do not live in a credulous age. 

The world would be in a poor case in- 
deed if it had not always before it some 
ideal or millennial condition, some pana- 
cea, some transmutation of base metals 



^87 



into gold, some philosopher's stone, some 
fountain of youth, some process of turn- 
ing charcoal into diamonds, some scheme 
for eliminating evil. But it is worth men- 
tioning that in the historical evolution we 
have always got better things than we 
sought or imagined, developments on a 
much grander scale. History is strewn 
with the wreck of popular delusions, but 
always in place of them have come reali- 
zations more astonishing than the wildest 
fancies of the dreamers. Florida was a 
disappointment as a Bimini, so were the 
land of the Ohio, the land of the Missis- 
sippi, the Dorado of the Pacific coast. 
But as the illusions, pushed always west- 
ward, vanished in the light of common 
day, lo ! a continent gradually emerged, 
with millions of people animated by con- 
quering ambition of progress in freedom; 
an industrial continent, covered with a 
net-work of steel, heated by steam, and 
lighted by electricity. What a spectacle 
of youth on a grand scale is this ! Chris- 
topher Columbus had not the slightest 
conception of what he was doing when 
he touched the button. But we are not 



satisfied. Quite as far from being so as 
ever. The popular imagination runs a 
hard race with any possible natural de- 
velopment. Being in possession of so 
much, we now expect to travel in the air, 
to read news in the sending mind before 
it is sent, to create force without cost, to 
be transported without time, and to make 
everybody equal in fortune and happiness 
to everybody else by act of Congress. 
Such confidence have we in the power of 
a " resolution " of the people and by the 
people that it seems feasible to make wom- 
en into men, oblivious of the more im- 
portant and imperative task that will then 
arise of making men into women. Some 
of these expectations are only Biminis of 
the present, but when they have vanished 
there will be a social and industrial world 
quite beyond our present conceptions, no 
doubt. In the article of woman, for in- 
stance, she may not become the being 
that the convention expects, but there 
may appear a Woman of whom all the 
Aspasias and Helens were only the faintest 
types. And although no progress will 
take the conceit out of men, there may 



appear a Man so amenable to ordinary- 
reason that he will give up the notion 
that he can lift himself up by his boot- 
straps, or make 
one grain of 
wheat two by 
calling it two. 

One of the 
Biminis that 
have always 
been looked for 
is an Ameri- 
can Literature. 
There was an 
impression that 
there must be 
such a thing 
somewhere on 
a continent that 
has everything 
else. We p;ave 
the world to- , i 

bacco and the 

potato, perhaps the most important con- 
tributions to the content and the fatness 
of the world made by any new country, 
and it was a noble ambition to give it new 




iqo 



yles of art and literatui 
seems to have been an impression that a 
hterature was something indigenous or 
ready-made, Hke any other purely native 
product, not needing any special period of 
cultivation or development, and that a 
nation would be in a mortifying position 
without one, even before it staked out its 
cities or built any roads. Captain John 
Smith, if he had ever settled here and 
spread himself over the continent, as he 
was capable of doing, might have taken 
the contract to furnish one, and we may 
be sure that he would have left us noth- 
ing to desire in that direction. But the 
vein of romance he opened was not fol- 
lowed up. Other prospectings were made. 
Holes, so to speak, were dug. in New 
England, and in the middle South, and 
along the frontier, and such leads were 
found that again and again the certainty 
arose that at last the real American ore 
had been discovered. Meantime a cer- 
tain process called civilization went on, 
and certain ideas of breadth entered into 
our conceptions, and ideas also of the 
historical development of the expression 



igi 

of thought in the world, and with these a 
comprehension of what American really 
is, and the difficulty of putting the con- 
tents of a bushel measure into a pint cup. 
So, while we have been expecting the 
American Literature to come out from 




some locality, neat and clean, like a nug- 
get, or, to change the figure, to bloom 
any day like a century-plant, in one strik- 
ing, fragrant expression of American life, 
behold something else has been preparing 
and maturing, larger and more promising 
than our early anticiptaions. In history, 



192 



in biography, in science, in the essay, in 
the novel and story, there are coming 
forth a hundred expressions of the hun- 
dred aspects of American life; and they 
are also sung by the poets in notes as 
varied as the migrating birds. The birds 
perhaps have the best of it thus far, but 
the bird is limited to a small range of 
performances while he shifts his singing- 
boughs through the climates of the con- 
tinent, whereas the poet, though a little 
inclined to mistake aspiration for inspira- 
tion, and vagueness of longing for subtlety, 
is experimenting in a most hopeful man- 
ner. And all these writers, while perhaps 
not consciously American or consciously 
seeking to do more than their best in 
their several ways, are animated by the 
free spirit of inquiry and expression that 
belongs to an independent nation, and so 
our literature is coming to have a stamp 
of its own that is unlike any other na- 
tional stamp. And it will have this stamp 
more authentically and be clearer and 
stronger as we drop the self-conscious- 
ness of the necessity of being American. 




ERE 



IS une 



June again ! It never was 
more welcome in these Northern latitudes. 
It seems a pity that such a month cannot 
be twice as long. It has been the pet of 
the poets, but it is not spoiled, and is just 
as full of enchantment as ever. The se- 
cret of this is that it is the month of both 
hope and fruition. It is the girl of eigh- 
teen, standing with all her charms on the 
eve of womanhood, in the dress and tem- 
perament of spring. And the beauty of 
it is that almost every woman is young, 
if ever she were young, in June. For her 
the roses bloom, and the red clover. It 
is a pity the month is so short. It is as 
full of vigor as of beauty. The energy of 
the year is not yet spent; indeed, the 
world is opening on all sides ; the school- 
girl is about to graduate into liberty ; and 
the young man is panting to kick or row 

his way into female adoration and general 

13 



194 



notoriety. The young men have made 
no mistake about the kind of education 
that is popular with women. The women 
like prowess and the manly virtues of 
pluck and endurance. The world has 
not changed in this respect. It was so 
with the Greeks; it was so when youth 
rode in tournaments and unhorsed each 
other for the love of a lady. June is the 
knightly month. On many a field of 
gold and green the heroes will kick their 
way into fame ; and bands of young wom- 
en, in white, with their diplomas in 
their hands, star-eyed mathematicians and 
linguists, will come out to smile upon the 
victors in that exhibition of strength that 
women most admire. No, the world is 
not decaying or losing its juvenility. The 
motto still is, " Love, and may the best 
man win !" How jocund and immortal 
is woman ! Now, in a hundred schools 
and colleges, will stand up the solemn, 
well-intentioned man before a row of 
pretty girls, and tell them about Woman- 
hood and its Duties, and they will listen 
just as shyly as if they were getting news, 
and needed to be instructed by a man on 



1 



195 



a subject which has engaged their entire 
attention since they were five years old. 
In the hght of science and experience the 
conceit of men is something curious. 
And in June ! the most blossoming, riant, 
feminine time of the year. The month 
itself is a liberal education to him who is 
not insensible to beauty and the strong 
sweet promise of life. The streams run 
clear then, as they do not in April ; the 
sky is high and transparent ; the world 
seems so large and fresh and inviting. 
Our houses, which six months in the 
year in these latitudes are fortifications 
of defence, are open now, and the breath 
of life flows through them. Even over 
the city the sky is benign, and all the 
country is a heavenly exhibition. May 
was sweet and capricious. This is the 
maidenhood deliciousness of the year. 
If you were to bisect the heart of a true 
poet, you would find written therein 
June. 



W 13 








'^-^^ '^' J^ ... V 




' ill 






iiiiiiilife 

•iiiaiii 



IM'M'^k 



:!iii!; i;! ii ill B I 



liiiiili 




